


Steal the Show

by AlexIsOkay, Monika (AlexIsOkay)



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-09-06 18:05:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16837672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexIsOkay/pseuds/AlexIsOkay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexIsOkay/pseuds/Monika
Summary: The notorious Aqours crime gang has pulled off heist after heist without ever getting caught- so much so that the game is almost starting to get boring. But when an unexpected client approaches them with an even more unexpected request, they'll find their skills put to the ultimate test. And this time, they won't be working alone.





	1. June 7th, 9:04 pm

The pit of the Paradise Shore Casino was bustling with people, crowding around tables as they worked their way from one game to the next. It was a classy establishment, the sort of place where everyone in sight was dressed to the nines, regardless of which side of the table they were on. Some of these people were clearly hardened veterans, intimately familiar with each and every game on offer, practicing their tricks and their theories as if these tests of chance had a way of being outsmarted, while others were clearly just wealthy socialites with too much money and too much free time, content to lose a few hundred thousand yen in the pursuit of an enjoyable evening (and that wasn’t counting the money they spent on top-shelf liquor and fancy horderves while they played).

Moving through the crowd, there was one girl who clearly didn’t belong. The rest of the casino’s patrons were refined businessfolk and social elite, people who carried decades of experience and worldly knowledge on their shoulders. As this girl approached one of the tables, her bright red hair in two pigtails, her eyes a vibrant, youthful green, it was clear just how wholly out of her depth she was. She was dressed well, just like the other patrons of the establishment, wearing a sleek red dress and a shimmering necklace along her collarbone, but they suited her the same way fancy clothing suited a child at a wedding. Like a costume, for her to pretend for an evening that she was anything like these people. It almost seemed like a miracle she had been old enough to get through the front door.

The girl clutched a purse in front of her as she stepped up to the table, this one featuring a roulette wheel, and gestured towards the open chair in front of her. “Um… I-Is this seat taken?” she asked. Her voice was timid and feeble against the din that filled the pit, so much so that it almost became lost to the crowd, but it managed to catch the attention of the dealer. He looked towards her, and immediately a hungry glint appeared in his eye. He knew how to spot an easy target. And this girl looked like one of the easiest.

“Not at all,” the man replied. “Step right up. Do you need chips?”

“Y-Yeah,” the girl replied, climbing into the vacant seat as a few other players looked her over, sizing her up. “I don’t have any yet, but… My onee-chan left me some money to play with while she’s busy.” As the girl said that she reached into her purse, producing a rather sizable sum of cash- 200,000 yen, to be exact. The dealer practically seemed to salivate as she slid it towards him, letting the money disappear through a slot before producing an equivalent value of chips. While the dealer was doing this the girl glanced at the wheel and the board, taking in the numbers, brow furrowing as she did so. She looked confused, and it wouldn’t have been hard for anyone around her to make the assumption that she had never played this game before.

“Do I just… Bet on the numbers?” the girl asked as the chips were slid back to her.

“That’s right,” the dealer replied, pointing towards a small list of values and ratios printed to the side of the board. “You can bet on a particular number, evens, odds, red, black, whatever you want.”

“Then I’ll bet… Red!” the girl decided, sliding roughly a third of her chips forward. It seemed to be a color she was quite fond of, and perhaps she hoped that would bring her good luck. The dealer took a moment to gather up bets from the other players as well, before giving the wheel a firm spin and feeding a small ball into it. The girl watched with wide eyes as the ball went around and around, clutching her hands together in front of herself with a look of excitement and anticipation on her face. That excitement quickly turned to disappointment when the ball finally came to a stop, plunking onto a black space.

“Black Eleven,” the dealer called out, gathering up chips and paying out to the people who had won before looking back towards the girl. “Don’t get too disappointed yet,” he said. “You might have better luck on the second go. Wanna try again?”

“Yeah!” the girl replied, determination crossing over her face as she nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll go… Even this time!” It had come up odd last time, so it made sense to bet even now, right? The girl pushed more of her chips forward, and the dealer rolled another ball, only for a similarly disappointing outcome to occur.

“Red 25!” he said. This pattern continued on as well; even as the girl continued to make her bets incrementally smaller, she seemed unable to come up with a winning roll, and it was only a few rounds before she was watching the last of her chips disappear across the table after another failure. The dealer attempted to console her, although he didn’t seem particularly apologetic.

“We all have bad runs sometimes,” her told her. “There’ll always be a spot at the table if you wanna try again, alright?”

“A-Alright…” the girl replied, nodding slowly. Her head was hanging lower now, and she was clearly disappointed by these results, the vibrant youthfulness she’d carried to the table with her having vanished now. Still, with no chips left, there was no reason for her to remain there. With a little sigh of disappointment she began to move from her chair, climbing down from her spot. As she did so, however, her balance suddenly seemed to be thrown off. The stiletto of her heel caught on the lower rung of the chair, causing her entire leg to pivot around it. She was abruptly thrown downward by gravity, squealing before being slammed to the floor with a loud thud that immediately caught the attention of everyone around her. The other patrons mostly just looked on in quiet shock, but two employees of the casino who had both been standing against the nearby wall rushed forward, immediately crouching down beside the girl.

“Are you alright?” one of them asked, a man looking to be in his late thirties. Despite the fact that he was the one who had spoken, though, it was the other employee that the girl looked up towards: she was a woman, seeming to be around her mid-twenties. She was dressed in the same uniform as all of the other employees, a collared white shirt tucked into black slacks with a deep crimson vest overtop. Her hair was a sandy brown, just long enough to be pulled into a tiny ponytail at the back of her head, and her eyes were a vibrant blue. There was a silvery name tag affixed to her vest, with kanji carved into it: “Nakamura.”

“Y-Yeah,” the girl replied, nodding as she shakily pushed her arms against the floor, trying to lift herself back to her feet. “I’m o-okay.” This claim was undermined the moment she tried to put any weight on her ankle, however, immediately causing her to collapse back to the ground with another wince, sucking air in through her teeth in pained gasps.

“It seems like she might have twisted it,” the woman identified as Nakamura said, looking up towards her coworker. “I’ll help carry her over to the service desk so we can take a look at it. Do you think you can walk if I help you?” she then asked, turning her attention to the girl again.

“I- I think so,” the girl replied, nodding as she started to loop an arm around the employee’s shoulder. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry,” the employee replied. “Let’s just focus on getting you up.”

As this scene unfolded, unbeknownst to the gathered crowd, two more women were taking advantage of the distraction that it had caused, walking briskly towards a door that had been left unattended when the two employees rushed towards the injured girl. They were both dressed in sharp suits, both redheads, though one woman had shorter orange hair while the other had longer hair straying more towards the auburn end of the spectrum. As they approached the door the long-haired woman slipped a hand into her pocket and produced a badge, containing a small photo of the brown-haired casino employee, and the name “Tae Nakamura.” She tapped it against a card reader next to the door, illuminated red, only for it to turn green a moment later. A small click followed, and the two women pushed through the door, letting it swing shut behind them.

From there they found themselves in the back of the casino, an area that existed in stark contrast to the front of the house. While the pit itself and the areas that were visible to guests were ornate and lavish, filled with patterned carpets and grand chandeliers and gold ornamentation along the walls and the edges of the tables, the back was simple and sparse, gray concrete floors with white walls that stretched out along a hall in two different directions, one path continuing off ahead of them while the other split off to the right. Pipes and wires ran overhead, exposed, though looking to be well-maintained. The only light came from fluorescent tubes, much harsher than the atmospheric lighting outside.

“You know where you’re going, right, Chika-chan?” the long-haired woman asked.

“I studied the map, Riko-chan!” Chika replied. “Are you ready?” She held up her wrist after saying that, showing off the watch strapped around it. Riko nodded in agreement, doing the same. They both set a timer for exactly seven minutes, looking each other in the eyes as Riko counted down.

“Three, two, one… Go.” As soon as she said the word “Go” they both pressed the start button on the side of the watch, and the timer started counting down. With one final nod they split off from each other, Chika continuing straight down the hall while Riko broke to the right. Chika had a clear destination in mind, and she moved with purpose, glancing down at her watch every few moments as the seconds ticked past. 6:30, then 6:00, then 5:30, continuously dwindling, until she came to a halt in front of a door with 5:12 left on her countdown. At that point she paused, waiting for a few more seconds to tick past. At 5:03 she stood up straight, bracing herself and throwing her foot forward, slamming it into the door at precisely 5:00. She kicked the door enough to make it buckle, and while the reaction was understated, she could hear a faint, almost imperceptible whining noise telling her she’d accomplished her goal: she’d tripped the silent alarm.

In the other direction Riko stood outside a door of her own, pressed up against the wall. The door was slightly open, and inside she heard a voice, electric and slightly distorted, coming in over a speaker. “We just had an alarm go off leading down to the vault. Be safe and lock down the cash cage until we can clear it.”

“Roger,” a voice from inside the room replied. From there Riko heard footsteps drawing closer, and then saw the door start to close. Just before it had shut all the way she jammed a foot forward, preventing it from closing completely. And, a moment later, she was pivoting to face through the gap, now holding a pistol in front of her and aiming it through the opening.

“Tell whoever that was you’ve locked this room,” she said. Her voice was cold and authoritative, but it carried just enough of an edge to sound threatening as well. Between that and the gun she seemed to have the intended effect, and the employee on the other side of the door looked nearly petrified with fear. There were two other men behind him as well, Riko noticed, but all of them looked rooted in place.

“P-Please,” the man managed to choke out. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Then tell them this room is locked down,” Riko repeated. “ _Now_.” Her watch was still ticking, and every second she spent arguing with a stammering cashier was a second wasted. The man slowly nodded, though, carefully raising a walkie talkie towards his mouth, never breaking eye contact with Riko the whole time.

“We’re all set here,” he said, managing to keep his voice mostly calm. “The room’s locked up.”

“Roger that,” the voice on the other end came back. “We’ll let you know when the situation’s cleared. Over and out.”

“Now,” Riko said, using her spare hand to reach into the inside of her jacket and pull out a cloth sack that had been folded neatly against her back, tucked into her belt, “drop the walkie talkie and fill this with as much money as you can fit. Hurry.” Once again the employee nodded fearfully, letting the walkie talkie clatter to the ground before all three of them started scooping nicely bundled stacks of bills off the shelves, hastily loading them into the bag Riko kept outstretched.

Back in the pit, the patrons of the casino seemed unaware of the ensuing robbery. They all continued their games while the employee with the Nakamura name tag continued leading the younger girl out of the main area, towards the service desk where first aid supplies were kept. As they left the pit floor, however, and were largely out of sight and earshot of the other casino employees, she looked down at the girl, locking eyes with her.

“I never stop being impressed by what a good actor you are, Ruby-chan,” she said.

“I could say the same about you, You-chan,” Ruby giggled back. She still had an arm around You’s shoulder as they walked, but she wasn’t actually putting any weight on it, supporting herself entirely on her supposedly injured ankle. “Was it scary having a whole fake name and a fake job this time?”

“Little bit,” You said. “But those papers Maru-chan made were spot-on. I don’t think anyone suspected a thing all week.” As You and Ruby spoke they walked through the main lobby of the casino- and right past the service desk You had claimed to be taking Ruby towards. The hall continued to stretch out in that direction, leading onwards towards a side entrance to the building, one that was attached to the casino’s parking garage. “We should probably hurry,” You mused, glancing down at her watch. “Our ride is gonna be expecting us.”

Chika, at this point, had broken into a dead sprint. Her distraction had worked, but the downside of that meant she had attracted several of the casino’s security personnel to her position. She was following the light up signs that pointed towards the emergency fire exit, knowing it was the only route that wouldn’t be blocked by locked doors while Riko had You’s keycard, and as she ran along she could hear voices echoing down the hall behind her.

“I hear something this way!”

“Keep after it!”

Despite the aching in her lungs and her legs from running as fast as she possibly could, a grin crossed over Chika’s face when she realized she still had their attention. All according to plan.

The employees in the cash cage were still loading as many stacks of bills as they could into the sack Riko was holding out. All the while, though, Riko was keeping her eye on her watch. 1:50, 1:40, 1:30, and just as the timer hit one minute remaining she suddenly pulled away, locking eyes with the employee in front of her again.

“That’s enough,” she stated. “Lock this room down for real now.” Then, before any of them even had the chance to respond to her, she was out of the doorway and running back down the hall. She still had her gun in one hand, the bag of money in the other, and as she ran she dug Tae Nakamura’s employee ID out of her pocket as well, tapping against the readers of security doors to facilitate her escape. There was no doubt in her mind that the employees would have called security the moment she was gone, which meant she had to move fast- but with only forty-eight seconds left, that was a given anyway. Riko traveled down a staircase that lead lower into the facility while Chika burst through the door of the fire escape, suddenly triggering an alarm that rang through the entire casino, alerting patrons and employees alike. At the back of the building Chika was now three stories up, standing on a metal walkway with narrow stairs that twisted downward towards her destination. She could still hear the security guards rushing out behind her as well.

With the alarm blaring full volume through the hallways now Riko knew the front of the casino was likely being thrown into chaos, but she also knew that was hardly going to do anything about the security staff already tailing her, who were probably able to piece together cause and effect and deduce that there wasn’t really a fire. Riko’s feet thudded along the floor as she reached the bottom of a staircase, seeing one last set of locked double doors in front of her. She glanced down at her watch again, seeing the “0:30” that was still displayed, then tapped the badge one more time and barrelled her way through the doors.

On the other side she found a loading dock, with high ceilings and a wide open garage door stretching easily twenty feet vertically leading to the outside. There were two staff members there as well, but all it took was Riko raising her gun and a loud “Out of my way!” for her to clear a path. She ran out over the raised concrete platform at the edge of the room and jumped down to ground level, taking another glance at her watch. 0:15. And, like clockwork, a car suddenly came roaring to a halt in front of the garage door. It was a dark blue convertible with the top down, brake lights glowing red as smoke kicked up off the tires. In the back seat were the recognizable faces of the phony casino attendant and the redheaded girl she had been escorting out of the building. And, sitting in the front seat, there was a slightly older looking woman with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, one hand on the wheel while the other hung over the edge of the vehicle. She looked towards Riko with vibrant purple eyes, an enormous grin stretching over her face.

“Need a lift?” she asked.

“Is now really the time to be smarmy, Kanan-san?” Riko replied, running the last few feet forward to vault herself over the edge of the car and into the back. No sooner had she hit the seat than Kanan slammed her foot on the gas, and the car roared to life again.

As Riko was hurdling into the car Chika was still haphazardly careening down the stairs of the fire escape, taking them two or three at a time while she heard clattering and shouting above her. “Hey, you!” a man shouted. “STOP!” Chika, of course, didn’t follow this direction. She did, however, heed the next command she heard.

“JUMP, CHIKA-CHAN!” Chika didn’t even question it when You’s voice shouted that. Her fingers wrapped around the metal railing as she threw herself over the edge of the platform, and it was only once she was already in midair that she saw an open-topped car with four people in it speeding towards her. She felt her stomach twist and fly up into her chest as she fell through the air, plunging a story towards the ground while the car got closer and closer with every passing fraction of a second. You and Riko both reached up, arms outstretched and prepared to catch her, and Chika continued plummeting until-

Two watches simultaneously hit 0:00.

Two alarms simultaneously started to beep.

And two sets of arms simultaneously grabbed hold of Chika as she crashed into a back seat that absolutely wasn’t made to hold four people.

“Holy shit!” were the first words out of Chika’s mouth as she landed across the laps of her two friends, gasping to catch her breath. She then glanced up at Riko, locking eyes with her associate. “Did you get the-”

“Right here,” Riko replied, tapping her foot against the bag of cash sitting on the floor beside her. “Close to eight-hundred million, by my guess.”

“And I only had to lose a few hundred thousand at the roulette table,” Ruby giggled.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Kanan reminded them from the front. “I hope you girls are ready for some fancy driving.” To punctuate those words she slammed on the brake and drifted around the corner from the loading dock access road to the main street, narrowly dodging an oncoming vehicle and listening to horns blare at them while she did so. Still, nobody in the back seat seemed worried, and none of them had much of a reason to be. Kanan was the best getaway driver they could ask for. And as she weaved between traffic and tore down side streets to lose anyone who might be trying to follow, all five of them knew it: this was yet another successful job on the books.


	2. June 15th, 1:06 pm

Just over a week had passed since the heist at the Paradise Shore Casino. During that time Aqours had been laying low, staying out of the spotlight, and, most importantly, enjoying the sizeable payout they had all received. Kanan Matsuura spent hers in the same way she almost always did: on cars.

She was down on the floor at this point, on her back, tuning up the car she had used to make their escape during their last job. It was one of the older additions to her collection, and hardly one of the most expensive (she was generally adamant about using her most prized models only for leisure, rather than for getaways), but it had been put under some serious strain as they fled from the scene of their crime, and could use some attention. While Kanan worked, voices also filled the garage around her.

“I still haven’t decided what to spend it on,” Riko’s voice said. “I would feel a little wasteful adding more guns to my collection just to have them.” Immediately, Riko’s words were followed up by a deep, sinister laughter.

“Wasteful?” another voice replied. “It’s never wasteful to expand your unholy arsenal. Prepare yourself for any misfortune! Cast open the gates of Hell, Riri!”

“I told you not to call me that in front of the others,” Riko muttered.

“She’s got a point though. I don’t think you can ever have  _ too _ many guns. You never know what a situation is gonna call for.” The voice that was speaking now wasn’t a member of Aqours, though it was still one that was familiar to Kanan. It was followed up a moment later by the sound of a quiet thud, at which point Kanan’s eyes narrowed. She stopped what she was doing, rolling out from under the car and jolting into an upright sitting position.

“I know you didn’t just sit on the hood of one of my babies.” It was, of course, a rhetorical statement, given that she’d already caught the culprit red-handed. Sitting there on the front of one of Kanan’s many cars, arms crossed while a half-apologetic smile crossed over her face, was one of Aqours’ long-time associates: Sarah Kazuno. The Kazuno sisters weren’t officially members of Aqours, but they had proved their merit and their trustworthiness time and time again to the point that they were often called in to assist with jobs where their skills were needed. And, on days like this one, they could also often be found hanging around with the members of Aqours when they had nothing better to do.

“Sorry, Kanan-san,” Sarah replied, sliding back off the front of the car and letting her feet hit the concrete floor, bringing her to stand next to her sister Leah. Ruby was on the other side of Leah, perched up on the top of a stool, while Yoshiko and Riko rounded out the group, Riko leaning against Yoshiko while Yoshiko leaned against the wall, arms loosely draped around her girlfriend. They were all dressed casually, in sharp contrast to the sleek suits and dresses of their casino heist. Ruby was enjoying the warm summer day in shorts and a tank top, while Kanan, aware that she was about to end up covered in oil and grease, was wearing one of the grungiest t-shirts she owned. Yoshiko and Riko were both wearing jackets, Yoshiko’s leather while Riko’s was simple textile, but the helmets on the floor beside them made it clear it was because they had gotten there on Yoshiko’s motorcycle.

The garage they were in was large- large enough that it was probably more accurate to call it a showroom. While the corner they were all sequestered in had been particularly designated for maintenance and tune-ups, the room as a whole served as a gallery for Kanan’s ever-growing collection of luxury vehicles. One look at the assembled fleet was enough to tell anyone what Kanan’s primary focus was: speed. Nearly every gathered vehicle was some model of sports car or another, the sort that ensured Kanan could- and often did- drive far faster than she should have. Most of them had vibrant paint jobs as well, yellow or red or electric blue, though there were a few darker colors tossed into the mix for good measure. Each one was meticulously lined up along the length of the garage, ready for Kanan to take them out whenever the mood struck her.

“Does it even matter if she dents up the hood?” Yoshiko asked, glancing between Kanan and Sarah. “You just replaced that one anyway.”

“ _ Replaced? _ ” Kanan repeated. “I didn’t  _ replace  _ anything. Getting the new model isn’t  _ replacing _ the old one.” The car Sarah had been leaning against the front of was an orange Dodge Viper, a sleek car that was low to the ground, headlights and grill set back into a wide front. Then, true to Yoshiko’s word, there was another seemingly identical orange Dodge Viper parked directly next to it. And, after that, a  _ third _ orange Dodge Viper, rounding out the collection. 2017, 2018, and now 2019, all lined up in a neat little row.

“I’m kinda with Yocchan on this one,” Riko admitted. “You’re basically just buying the same thing every year, right?”

“They’re not the same!” Kanan huffed. “There’s subtle differences between the models. The exact shape, or how sensitive the acceleration is, or how well it handles. You can tell.”

“ _ You _ can tell,” Yoshiko replied. “You’re probably the only person in the world who can.” Kanan galred at Yoshiko over that, and she probably would have laid into her quite a bit further had their conversation not been interrupted at that point. A noise echoed out from nearby as the doors to the garage swung open, and a voice called out towards them.

“Kanan, you’re needed at- Oh. You’re all here. That makes this easier.” Standing there in a crisp white shirt, neatly tucked into a black pencil skirt, looking as if she had just walked right out of an executive boardroom was none other than one of Aqours’ de facto leaders: Dia Kurosawa.

“Did something happen?” Kanan asked, setting her tools down as she realized she was about to get pulled away from her work.

“Mari asked for me to come gather everyone,” Dia replied. Her voice was stern, not necessarily in a scolding way, but in a business-like manner that offered sharp contrast to the joking atmosphere that had filled the garage a moment prior. “She believes she has a lead on another job for us.”

“Already?” Riko chimed in. “That seems like an unusually fast turnaround.”

“Yes, I felt the same,” Dia agreed. “But she seems to think it’s promising, and is eager to share. She wants everyone to gather at the hotel at once.”

“Well, this seems like it doesn’t really concern us anymore,” Sarah said. “We’ll be heading off.”

“Your discretion is appreciated as always, Sarah-san,” Dia replied, before her sister piped up from across the space.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, right, Leah-chan?” Ruby asked. Leah’s face flushed red when she heard that, and it was clear from the look of surprise on Sarah’s face, immediately followed by the look of devious sisterly glee, that this arrangement was news to her.

“Tomorrow, huh?” she asked, barely managing to hold back a grin as she looked down at Leah. “You didn’t tell me you had plans tomorrow.”

“Shut up!” Leah huffed, tensing up her shoulders and shrinking down in on herself, before halfway glancing in Ruby’s direction. “Yeah. I’ll, uh- I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that she was making a beeline for the door, Sarah laughing as she followed after, and Ruby simply smiling as she watched Leah disappear. After the doors swung shut behind them, though, the members of Aqour were alone, and Dia waved her sister forward.

“Come with me, Ruby,” she said. “I’ll drive you. The rest of you can get to the hotel on your own, I assume?”

“Dia,” Kanan replied, wheeling herself across the floor until her hand came to rest on the front of her newly acquired 2019 Viper. “You have no idea how happy you’ve just made me.”

* * *

The Ohara Hotel was a towering building directly overlooking the ocean, renowned as a tourist destination for visitors from around the world. A lengthy driveway lead up towards the building, lined by trees on both sides, and while typically parking was reserved for guests only, the members of Aqours had special accommodations.

Even from the outside it was clear that the hotel was a place of wealth and extravagance, the sharp white exterior and vaguely manor-like architecture setting it apart from the standard chain hotels that most people were accustomed to staying in. The building stretched up high into the sky- seventeen stories to be precise- and it was no secret that the rooms near the top fetched a much higher price than the ones lower down. That was also precisely where everyone was headed.

Kanan was the last to arrive, having needed a few extra minutes to get her brand new car ready to roll out onto the streets, and as she walked into the lobby, taking in the high ceilings and the marble floors and the reception desk that looked like it must have been hand-carved a hundred years ago, she was struck by the same sense of excess and extravagance she always felt when she came to this place. Maybe it was hypocritical coming from a woman who owned as many luxury cars as she did, but as someone who had grown up in a working class family, it all felt just a little over the top.

Kanan stepped into one of the elevators to take her to the highest floor, already quite familiar with where she was going. The Ohara family had owned this hotel for generations, and Mari had recently taken the operations of this particular branch of their empire over from her parents. As it turned out, a multi-trillion yen international conglomerate made excellent cover for some of Aqours’ shadier dealings. Mari herself kept a suite on the top floor of this building on perpetual reservation, partly as something of a home away from home for herself, and partly as a meetinghouse for any time Aqours needed to be called together. It was easy to avoid suspicion when Mari owned the staff.

As the elevator reached the top of the building Kanan stepped out and took a few steps down the hall, turning towards the room in question. “1702,” the number on the door read. Kanan stepped forward, knocking briefly. A moment later the door came swinging open, and her ears were assaulted by a voice that was far, far too loud.

“Kanan! We’ve been waiting for you! Come in, come in!” Standing there in the doorway was one of Kanan’s oldest friends, and the proprietor of the hotel herself, Mari Ohara. She was a bombshell of a woman- not in terms of looks, but in the sense that she was full of so much energy and tended to leave such a trail of chaos in her wake that Kanan couldn’t help but compare her to a literal bomb. She was wearing a white dress with a few buttons near the top, nothing overly fancy, but just formal enough that Kanan had a feeling she had just come from another meeting. She had accessorized as well, of course, gold bracelets and necklaces dangling from her figure while a few rings adorned her fingers. And, looking past Mari and further into the room, Kanan could see the rest of the members of their group gathered as well.

The penthouse suite was a spacious room, and the other members of Aqours were spread out throughout it. A sofa designed for three people had been made to fit four as Riko and You sat in the center, Yoshiko on one side and Chika on the other. Dia was sitting in one armchair, posture rigid and upright as ever, while Hanamaru was sitting cross-legged in the other. Ruby was seated on the floor up against Hanamaru’s chair, and it appeared the two of them were engaged in conversation.

“Now that everyone’s here, can I offer you anything to drink?” Mari asked, strolling towards the kitchenette that was a fixture of the penthouse while Kanan stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. She walked towards Dia’s seat, choosing to stand for the time being.

“We have other business to attend to,” Dia replied, her typically stern voice taking on an added tone of irritation while she addressed Mari. Apparently her old friend had that sort of effect on her.

“Impatient as always, Dia-san,” Mari replied. Despite the protest she was already over by the counter, uncorking a crystal bottle of whisky that, Kanan assumed, probably cost more than some of the jewelry Mari was wearing. Mari took a moment to pour herself a glass before, not hearing requests from anyone else, sealing the bottle back up. She picked up her glass and swirled in it her hand as she returned to the rest of the group, and it was clear from the curled up corners of her mouth that she was having a little bit too much fun tormenting Dia like this.

“Now that we’ve all made ourselves comfortable,” Mari hummed, coming to stand next to Dia’s chair on the opposite side from Kanan, “I can fill you all in about this new job of ours: we’ve gotten a request.”

“A  _ request? _ ” Dia repeated, though it was clear from the looks on the faces of everyone in the room that she had only said what they were all already thinking. “We don’t take requests.”

“I had a feeling you would say that, Dia,” Mari replied. “And I also have a feeling you’ll change your tune once I tell you who it’s from.”

“Unlikely,” Dia replied. “I don’t know who would have the audacity to treat us like we’re some band of common mercenaries, but I’m not going to-”

“Tsubasa Kira.” An immediate silence fell over the room when Mari said that name, and for good reason: Tsubasa Kira was one of the  _ the  _ most famous pop idols in all of Japan. She was a household name, the sort of person whose face was plastered over so many billboards and commercials it would have been hard to avoid even if you had tried. The silence engulfing the group wasn’t simply a product of familiarity either: Tsubasa had quite a few fans within the ranks of Aqours, and Dia in particular had a borderline embarrassing obsession with her. Even for the members who weren’t as passionate, though, they all clearly know who she was.

All except Hanamaru, who spoke up with a quiet “Who?”

“Ts-Tsu-  _ The  _ Tsubasa Kira?” Dia finally managed to stammer out, by which point Mari’s smile had gone from devious to full-on shit-eating.

“ _ The _ Tsubasa Kira. Isn’t that  _ fascinating? _ ” she hummed, emphasizing the last word in English.

“What does she want from us?” You asked, bringing up the next question that was surely already on everyone else’s mind. As she did, though, Mari raised up a single finger, shaking her head slightly.

“Well, that’s the funny thing about this,” Mari replied. “She said she couldn’t tell us until we were able to meet in person-  _ all  _ of us,” she added on, circling that finger around to gesture to the entire room. “She wanted to arrange a meeting for next week.”

“I don’t like this.” All heads turned towards Kanan when she said that, and she was now standing with her arms crossed, a serious expression on her face. “She wants to gather us all in one place but won’t tell us why? What’s a famous idol like her doing contacting people like us in the first place? It’s suspicious.”

“Yeah, something about this seems off,” You agreed. “Do we even know for sure it’s really her?”

“She provided me ample proof of her identity,” Mari replied, “so that’s not really an issue. What  _ is  _ an issue is you all turning into a bunch of scaredy cats while I wasn’t paying attention!” She hummed to herself after saying that, twirling around the back of Dia’s chair until she was standing next to Kanan, tossing an arm around the other woman’s shoulders. “You seem tense,” she cooed, before lifting her glass of whiskey and pushing it to Kanan’s lips. “Have a little sip, darling. Take the edge off.”

The exact nature of the relationship that existed between Mari, Kanan, and Dia was nebulous and ill-defined, and something the other members of Aqours tended to whisper about but never dared to ask about directly. That said, the fact that there  _ was _ some sort of relationship there to begin with was common knowledge, and while Dia and Kanan at least had the restraint to conduct themselves professionally in meetings like this one, and to behave when in front of the other members of their group, Mari showed no such concern.

Kanan shot Mari an irritated sideways glance as she pushed the glass away from her mouth, unsuccessfully attempting to shrug Mari’s arm off her shoulder as well. “The others are right,” she said. “I don’t really know what Kira would want with a group like ours, but we can’t rule out that we’re walking into some sort of trap.”

“Who’s everyone talking about?” Hanamaru asked as the conversation continued to rush on without her.

“Did she say where she wanted to meet with us?” Dia asked. “Did she give you a location yet?”

“She offered some fancy upscale club in the heart of the city,” Mari replied, finally extracting herself from Kanan only to twirl over towards Dia’s chair, and then drop down into it. She came to sit in Dia’s lap, leaning against the other woman and nearly spilling her whiskey in the process. Despite this, Dia’s own reaction was rather understated, little more than vague annoyance. She was used to this sort of behavior out of Mari.

“She said she could book the whole place out during the day, so we would have privacy,” Mari replied. “But it would still be out in public and in broad daylight. If it turned out to be a setup, I think we would be able to see it coming.”

“I think we should do it!” Chika blurted out. That wasn’t entirely surprising- Chika tended to be one of the more impulsive members of the group. She was also, much to Dia’s frequent chagrin, a charismatic sort of impulsive, who had a habit of getting others on her side with seemingly little effort. “Whatever she wants us for it’s probably something big, right? Some sort of cool job we’ve never done before! We shouldn’t pass that up!”

“Doesn’t that worry you, Chika-chan?” Riko asked. “If it is something completely new to us… There would be a lot of risk associated with that. We shouldn’t blindly rush in just because it seems cool.”

Aqours had a long history behind them. They had robbed several banks when they were first starting out, before moving on to more ambitious targets. They had stolen two different famous paintings out of museums, one of which was hanging on the wall of the very room they were having this conversation in. They had once coordinated to run an armored truck off the road and clean out the back. They had committed robbery on a moving train. Nearly every heist that could be imagined, they had pulled off. Riko didn’t know what could actually qualify as something “new” to them at this point, but she was cautious nonetheless.

“Maybe it worries me a little bit,” Chika admitted, “but I believe in this group! We’ve never screwed up before, have we? And I don’t think any of us are planning to start now!”

“That’s easier said than done,” Kanan insisted. “We can give ourselves all the little pep talks we want, but when the rubber meets the road we have no idea what sort of a dangerous situation we could be putting ourselves in.”

“Dangerous?” Mari repeated, and Kanan could tell from the bubbling laughter welling up behind Mari’s voice that she had just said something she shouldn’t have. “Remind me, Kanan, what was it you spent your casino money on? Rent and grocery bills, right?”

“What are you-”

“Oh, no, _silly me_!” Mari interrupted before Kanan had the chance to finish her question. “You spent it on that expensive new sports car you were going on and on about, didn’t you?”

“What’s your point?” Kanan grumbled.

“What about you, Dia?” Mari continued, twisting her shoulders to look at the woman whose lap she was still seated in. “Care to tell the class what you spent your money on? Unexpected medical bills, perhaps?” Dia started back at Mari for a few moments, eyes narrowed, expression cold and serious. But Mari wouldn’t budge, and after a couple more seconds had passed Dia ended up breaking away, looking off to the side and muttering an answer under her breath.

“A collection of Meiji Period silk scroll paintings,” she confessed.

“Anyone else?” Mari then asked, looking out towards the rest of the group. “Did anyone use that money to pay off their mortgage or to finally get that leaky faucet in their bathroom fixed? Anybody?” A silence hung over the room after she said that, and while Mari gave everyone else a chance to answer her question, it was clear nobody was going to. With a triumphant smile, she turned back towards Kanan. “See?”

“What’s your point?” Kanan asked.

“My point,” Mari replied, “is that if anyone in this room was really so worried about the danger we would all be able to live just fine without our luxury cars and our hundred year old paintings. And if you really needed your cars  _ that _ badly you could quit right now and still have a whole garage full of them to go back home to. You’re not doing this in  _ spite  _ of the danger, Kanan. You’re doing it  _ because  _ of it. The rush you feel when you’re gripping the wheel of a car with sirens blaring behind you? The surge of adrenaline you get every time you realize you’re only seconds away from being caught? You’re addicted to it,” she giggled. “We all are.”

“There’s a difference between dangerous and suicidal,” Dia insisted.

“I know,” Mari replied, finally standing up from Dia’s lap to begin a slow pace about the room. “And I would never ask any of you to do something I thought was too reckless. One meeting with Kira-san. That’s all I’m asking of you. And if anyone still has a bad feeling after that, we don’t have to take the job. I think that’s reasonable, don’t you? Plus,” she added, stopping suddenly to pivot on her heel and face back towards Dia. “Even if we don’t sign on with her, you might still be able to get an autograph.”

“Th-That- That would be unprofessional,” Dia replied, crossing her arms and turning up her nose at the very thought of it. “I’ll be perfectly formal around her, thank you very much.”

“Then that’s a yes?” Mari asked. Dia hesitated just a little longer, but after a few seconds she let her arms drop back down, lifting up a single finger. “ _ One _ meeting,” she said. “Just to see what she wants from us. I’m not making any commitments past that.”

“That’s all I’m asking. And you, Kanan?”

“If everyone else is on board with it… I’m not going to object,” Kanan finally said. “But I still want to make it clear that I have reservations about this.”

“Well how about it?” Mari asked, twirling towards the rest of Aqours again. “Does anyone else have any other concerns? Another few seconds of silence passed, only to be suddenly broken by Hanamaru.

“Ohhhh!” she said, and everyone looked over to see her peering down at Ruby’s phone screen while Ruby showed her a picture. “ _ That _ Kira-san! The one from Dia-san’s douji-”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Dia blurted out, flying up from her chair and rushing towards the door. “Good work everyone! Session ADJOURNED!” Mari watched her storm out, barely managing to stifle hysterical laughter before returning her attention to the others.

“Well then,” she hummed. “Since Dia seems occupied, I’ll get to work on setting up that meeting.”


	3. June 19th, 11:47 am

Vesuvius struck Dia as a particularly ominous name for a club, though she supposed she could see the appeal for people who weren’t reading into it quite as deeply as she was. It sounded fancy and foreign, and if Tsubasa Kira wanted to meet them there it was surely an upscale establishment. It probably held a certain appeal for the sorts of people it was trying to attract. Still, she couldn’t help but feel like this was an omen of impending disaster.

The nine members of Aqour were walking down the street towards their destination as a unit, all of them well-dressed- not quite to the black-tie level of their casino hit, but in business formal attire Dia had insisted upon for meeting someone of Tsubasa’s stature.

“This thing is killing me,” Yoshiko groaned, tugging at the collar of her clean-pressed white shirt- or rather, the white shirt she had borrowed from Riko, since she didn’t actually own any of her own. And, speaking of Riko, she was suddenly pivoting around and coming to a stop in front of Yoshiko, scowling at her girlfriend.

“Don’t mess with it,” she scolded, grabbing the tie Yoshiko had loosened and yanking it back up into place. Yoshiko wheezed when she felt it tighten around her neck, but fell silent from further protest.

“I want everyone on their best behavior when we get in there,” Dia said, as if she hadn’t already given the whole crew the same warning a dozen times before.

“Don’t be so uptight, Dia!” Mari replied, tossing an arm around the other woman’s shoulders. “I’m sure someone as rich and famous as Kira-san knows how to have a good time. There’s probably a reasons he wanted to meet us at a club instead of a stuffy old board room.”

“Because it’s a trap,” Kanan said. She had been continuously thinking about that possibility over the past couple of days it had taken to arrange this meeting, and that fear still hadn’t left her entirely.

“ _ It’s not a trap! _ ” Mari insisted, before flashing Kanan a little smile and returning to Japanese. “Besides, even if it is, we came prepared. Isn’t that right, Riko-chan?”

“One of these days you’ll all get guns of your own so you can stop borrowing mine,” Riko murmured. Her arsenal was extensive- possibly as extensive as Kanan’s car collection- and she had two full walls completely lined with weapons down in the basement of her and Yoshiko’s home. She was meticulous about making sure each one of them was perfectly cared for, cleaned and properly maintained every time it was used. Normally they were just showpieces, and she only actually fired them during occasional weekend trips out into the mountains where she could get far enough away from civilization to not have to worry about getting caught. Right now, though, every single member of Aqours had a handgun concealed somewhere on their person. And Riko wasn’t thrilled about it.

As the group rounded another corner on the sidewalk they reached their supposed destination, although it wasn’t exactly clear what they were looking at. Dia would have expected some flashy, grandiose facade for a club like this one, something that would rival Tsubasa Kira’s own sense of ostentatious showmanship. Instead, she was greeted by a relatively plain looking brick building, with steps leading up the front and a few windows neatly set into the structure. For a moment she was worried they might have ended up in the wrong place, until she saw a small, almost hidden sign beside the doorway. “Vesuvius” was written in a deep red font, once in katakana, and then again below that in Latin characters. Ah, Dia realized. It was one of  _ those _ sorts of exclusive establishments, the kind to cool to even make its own presence known.

“Are you ladies ready?” Mari hummed, already starting her way up the front steps ahead of the rest of the group.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Kanan replied, following after Mari. Mari reached the top of the stairs, throwing the front door open to reveal the interior of the club.

And to reveal what appeared to be two security guards, waiting directly on the other side. Everyone seemed to freeze when they saw the two men standing there, dressed in suits and ties with their hands folded in front of them, and even Mari herself seemed to lose a touch of the irreverence with which she had been approaching the whole situation when she first saw them. Dia’s hand was already halfway to the pistol strapped to her leg under her skirt, prepared for the situation to go south fast. Fortunately, the guards seemed amiable towards them. As amiable as a security guard could be, at least.

“You must be Kira-san’s guests,” one of the men said, his eyes scanning through the group as the rest of them filed in. Behind the guard the rest of the club was visible, looking strange and almost alien when it was lit up in the daytime. The center of the floor was wide open, presumably for dancing, while a number of high backed booths lined the edges of the room. Off at the other end a bar was visible, stocked with bottles of liquor that were surely already expensive, and then marked up even more beyond that. There was also, over near the bar, a staircase leading up to what appeared to be a second balcony level, stretching around the perimeter of the room and looking down over the first floor. From down below, though, it was hard to see what was up there.

“That’s right!” Mari replied, stepping forward to speak to the guard herself. “Mari Ohara, of Ohara Hotels International! Lovely to meet you!” She extended a hand and offered it up to the guard after that, but he simply looked back at her with the same disinterested expression he’d been holding all along.

“We were told there would be nine of you,” he said, looking past Mari and to the rest of the group. His eyes moved from one member to the other until, satisfied with the number he had counted, he stepped to the side and ushered the women forward. “Kira-san is waiting for you on the upper level. Please head directly up there.” While the whole interaction had been taking place Dia was growing more and more aware of the feeling of the gun against her thigh, becoming increasingly worried that they were going to be searched and would have to explain the presence of so many weapons. Fortunately that didn’t seem to be the case, and she was all too eager to get past the guards.

As they walked out towards the center of the room to reach the staircase, shoes clacking against the sealed hardwood floor, a few of the members of Aqours seemed to be in awe.

“This place is really fancy, zura…” Hanamaru murmured, looking up at the high ceilings and the ornate molding that lined the walls. As the resident forger of the group Hanamaru often made her contributions to their heists before the job even began, meaning more often than not she was sitting it out once the actual action started. As a result, she wasn’t accustomed to these sorts of grandiose establishments in quite the same way many of the others were.

“How did we never know a club like this existed?” You asked. “We should come back here sometime when it’s actually open. You down, Chika-chan?”

“Yeah!” Chika replied, speaking at a volume that made Dia shoot an irritated glance in her direction. “What kinda music do you think they play here?”

“Probably some of that weird underground electronic stuff,” You said. “This seems like the kinda place that’ll play obscure shit you’ve never heard of.”

“Are you two quite done?” Dia chided, coming to a stop in front of the staircase that lead up to the second level. “Kira-san is waiting for us up there. I want everyone to be fully professional the moment we see her. Is that clear?”

“You’ll have to excuse Dia-san,” Mari hummed, strolling up alongside Dia with a far more relaxed demeanor. “You can’t blame her for being a little tense when she’s about to meet her hero. Although you  _ could _ stand to take a few notes from Ruby-chan. Look how calm she’s being!” Mari gestured to Ruby after she said that, and Ruby’s face turned a bit red when she realized the attention was suddenly on her. Truth be told, though, while she was hiding it at least a little bit better than her older sister was, Ruby was still freaking out over the thought of meeting Tsubasa, too.

“That’s not what this is about!” Dia insisted. “This is a business meeting, and I’m simply expecting everyone to behave as such. Now, if everyone is done with this tomfoolery, let’s go.” With that Dia turned up her nose, and began to walk up the stairs. Mari was still silently laughing to herself as she watched Dia try to put on her best professional business face, quickly following after. Kanan went next, and the rest of the members followed from there, marching in a single file line towards the top of the stairs. The staircase itself followed a wide curve, pivoting about ninety degrees to end parallel to the rest of the balcony as it reached the top. Dia was the first one to reach said balcony, of course-

And as she did she saw Tsubasa Kira herself, in the flesh.

As much as she had tried to prepare herself for this encounter, Dia’s heart nearly stopped when she saw Tsubasa sitting there on one of several wide couches that surrounded a large, low table, leaning back, one leg crossed over the other. She was dressed nicely, wearing a blazer and a skirt that made Dia thankful she’d insisted on dressing up for this meeting as well. She held a glass in one hand containing ice and a clear liquid, though Dia wasn’t sure if it was alcohol or just water. As they reached the top of the stairs Tsubasa’s vibrant green eyes fell upon Dia, and the corners of her lips curled up into a smile that Dia found disturbingly reminiscent of one of Mari’s own.

“Ah. I’m so glad you all could make it. Please, have a seat.”

If seeing Tsubasa Kira in person had been enough to make Dia’s heart stop once, hearing her speak was enough to shut it down a second time. It was only the feeling of Mari’s hand clapping her on the back (rather aggressively) that snapped Dia out of her trance, and then she was watching as Mari strolled past her, approaching the four large couches, all arranged in a square.

“Please excuse Dia here. She’s a little bit starstruck right now.”

“Mari!” Dia hissed, before looking back towards Tsubasa and clearing her throat, trying to pull herself together. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kira-san,” she said, giving a small bow at the waist before following after Mari.

“I assure you, the pleasure is all mine. Please, make yourselves comfortable,” Tsubasa said, gesturing towards the couches as the members of Aqours filed in and sat down. They arranged themselves three to a seat, notably leaving Tsubasa with a couch all to herself. Dia found herself sitting between Kanan and Mari, Yoshiko ended up with Riko on one side of her and Hanamaru on the other, and Ruby was left sitting between Chika and You.

“I do hope my bodyguards didn’t give you too much of a hard time down there,” Tsubasa went on. “I tried to insist that it wasn’t necessary to have them here at all, but my talent agency refuses to let me out of their sight.”

“It’s quite alright,” Dia insisted. “They didn’t give us any trouble.” And thank god for that, because somehow she doubted they would have been alright with the number of guns Aqours were carrying with them at the moment.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Tsubasa replied. “Can I get anyone anything before we begin? Something to drink, perhaps?”

“With all due respect, Kira-san,” Kanan cut in, her voice far more stern than Dia’s had been, not showing nearly the same degree of fervent deference, “I think we’re all curious about why you wanted to meet with us. If it’s all the same to you, we’d like to get right down to business and hear about this job you have for us.”

“Of course. I should have assumed as much,” Tsubasa said, directing her attention to Kanan and nodding along. “You’re all very busy women, I’m sure, so I won’t waste too much of your time. The reason I’ve requested your services,” she began. And then she said the last thing anyone in that room was expecting to hear. “Is because I want you to kidnap me.”

The silence that fell over the room when Tsubasa said that was a tense one, so thin and fragile that everyone seemed to be expecting anyone else to break it at any moment. All nine members of Aqours looked like they didn’t know how to react, though, still stuck trying to even process what they had just heard, let alone figure out how to respond to it. The silence dragged on for a full second, then two, then three, until Kanan was finally the one to say something.

“You fucking  _ what? _ ”

“Was I unclear?” Tsubasa said, smile stretching wider in a way that made it obvious she was enjoying this. “I want the nine of you to kidnap me.”

“And when you said  _ kidnap _ …” Chika asked.

“Can you even kidnap someone who wants to be kidnapped?” Hanamaru added on, tilting her head as she pondered the issue.

“A fair question,” Tsubasa replied. “But the issue here doesn’t really have anything to do with what  _ I  _ want. It’s all about what  _ other _ people want.”

“Cut the crap and explain yourself,” Kanan demanded, only to feel herself getting hit on the knee.

“Kanan!” Dia hissed, before looking over at Tsubasa. “I believe what my colleague here is so rudely trying to say,” she began, “is that we don’t quite understand what you’re asking us to do. Kidnapping a willing victim… That doesn’t really seem like kidnapping at all.”

“Under normal circumstances yes,” Tsubasa agreed. “Kidnapping a willing victim would hardly be a challenge befitting a group of professionals like yourselves. But kidnapping someone who has an equally professional security team monitoring her every movement at all hours of the day? I’m sure you can see how that would be a fair bit more challenging, no?”

“So you want us to steal you out from under your own bodyguards,” Kanan said, before asking what felt like the most obvious question. “Why?”

“Does it really matter why?” Tsubasa replied, casually shrugging her shoulders up as she uncrossed her legs, only to cross them back over each other in the opposite order. “I’m willing to pay quite a generous sum if you’re able to successfully assist me. I would have thought that would be all that mattered.”

“Well it’s not,” Kanan replied. “Maybe you already know this, but we’re not the sorts of people who usually take contracts in the first place. I wasn’t even sure about coming here to being with, and now you’re asking us to kidnap you but you won’t tell us why? This whole thing is suspicious as shit,” she declared. “If you want there to be even a chance of us going along with it you’d better start giving us answers,  _ now _ .”

Kanan’s words left a tense stillness over the room, and while everyone else was caught looking back and forth between her and Tsubasa, waiting to see what was going to happen next, the two women themselves were simply staring each other down, waiting in silence, eyes not breaking away from each other for a moment. Kanan’s expression was hard and stern, and the irreverent playfulness had disappeared from Tsubasa’s own face, leaving her looking equally serious. Seconds ticked by, one at a time, each one making the pause feel exponentially longer. Until, finally, Tsubasa leaned forward in her seat.

“Alright,” she conceded, still holding her glass in her hand, though she hadn’t taken a sip from it since Aqours had arrived. “I suppose you deserve an explanation, especially for a request as strange as this one. But listen closely,” she said. “Because I really don’t want the guards downstairs overhearing.” Silent glances were exchanged between the other members of Aqours when they heard that, all of them suddenly even more intrigued than they had already been. Almost subconsciously they mimicked Tsubasa, leaning forward in their own seats to bring themselves just a little bit closer to her before she continued speaking.

“Being an idol has become… Tiring,” she stated. “I’m sick of the lifestyle. I think the time has come for me to step out of the spotlight, and I’ve amassed more than enough of a fortune that I can afford to do so. But…” she went on, her face now twisting into an expression of displeasure. “I’m locked up in so many different contracts by now that I know my agency and my producers would never just let me walk away like that. They’ll force me to keep pumping out music until the day I die, and they’ll try to take me for everything I’m worth in a breach of contract suit if I refuse. So,” she said, idly shrugging her shoulders as that careless smile started to return to her face. “I think it would be easier to just disappear.”

“Disappear?” Dia repeated. There was some confusion and disbelief in her voice, though it was hard to tell if it was coming from the perspective of the professional being hired for this strange job, or from the perspective of the diehard fan who’d just found out her favorite musical artist wanted to abandon their career.

“That’s right. Disappear,” Tsubasa said, nodding along slowly. “Drop off the grid, move to some other country where they don’t know my face, and live out the rest of my days in peace.”

“And you need us to help you accomplish this  _ because _ …?” Kanan asked, her tone and demeanor remaining just as skeptical and untrusting as they had been all along.

“I’ve already told you how strict my security team is, haven’t I?” Tsubasa replied. “They’re with me constantly. Even when I’m at home, they’re still there standing outside my front door. Honestly, they’re less like bodyguards and more like jailers. There’s no way I could slip away from them on my own.  _ You _ ladies, however… You might stand a chance against them.”

Aqours, as a whole, were still almost completely silent. They were all taking the time to process everything they’d just been told, and to consider the request being made of them. Riko was starting to realize she was right to worry that this might be uncharted territory: for all the jobs their crew had pulled off in the past, they had never committed a kidnapping before, let alone one as bizarre as this. Dia and Kanan both felt similar concern; despite every challenge they had taken on in the past, none of it felt like it had prepared them for something like this. Kidnapping, even with a willing victim, was still a world away from stealing a painting or shoving some money in a bag and running off with it. It was probably fair to say they were getting in over their own heads. Despite all that hesitation, though, it was clear not everyone felt the same.

“I think we should do it.” All eyes fell upon Ruby as she said that, though Ruby herself wasn’t looking back at the rest of the group. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, and she was staring down at them. Her voice was quiet, lacking the contagious enthusiasm Chika might have had in a moment like that. But, despite that timidness, there was a conviction behind her words, apparent even from that single sentence.

“You do?” Dia asked, and her own voice was startled, making it clear she hadn’t been expecting this from her sister of all people. But in response to the question, Ruby nodded.

“She needs our help…” Ruby said. “She’s stuck somewhere she doesn’t wanna be, and she might be stuck there forever if nobody does anything. So, if there’s a way we can help her… If there’s anything we can do to make her life better… I think we should do it.”

“Ruby…” Dia said, though before she had the chance to finish the thought Chika was cutting in as well.

“Ruby-chan’s right!” she agreed. “This isn’t just a normal job for us! Kira-san needs our help, so I think we should do it! I’m on board!”

“Not that I’m tired of hitting up banks and casinos,” You added on, “but… It might be nice to actually do something good for someone else for a change. I’m in.”

“And if those two idiots are going along with it I suppose I don’t really have a choice, do I?” Riko sighed, earning her a huge grin and two thumbs up from You.

“It does sound like an interesting challenge,” Yoshiko chuckled, her voice deep and low, eyes shut as she smiled to herself. “Perhaps this will finally be a challenge worthy of a fallen angel’s many talents.”

“And getting to be a heroic outlaw like Robinhood or Goemon sounds fun…” Hanamaru mused.

“Well?” Mari hummed, looking down the couch towards Dia and Kanan, vague hints of a triumphant smirk tugging at her lips. “Everyone else seems to have made up their minds. What say you,  _ fearless leaders? _ ” Both of the women were silent at first, simply looking back at the rest of the group as they felt the weight of eight pairs of eyes upon them. They were both still clearly hesitant, but Dia ended up being the first to give an answer.

“Very well,” she said. “If everyone else seems so set on this course of action I won’t be the one to say no to it.” After giving her answer, she then turned to look at Kanan alongside everyone else. It took a few more seconds for Kanan to respond, but eventually she caved in as well.

“Alright,” she said, slouching back in her seat and crossing her arms over her torso. “I’m still not convinced this is a great idea, but… It’s like Dia said. If everyone else is committing to it, I will, too.”

“Thank you,” Tsubasa said, speaking up for the first time in a while. “I appreciate your help, and I assure you I can offer enough compensation to make this more than worth your while. We can begin discussing the further details of the plan as soon as the rest of the team arrives, so-”

“Hold on,” Dia interrupted, eyebrows suddenly arching down as Tsubasa said that. “‘Rest of the team?’ You didn’t mention that we would be working with anyone else.”

“Oh, didn’t I?” Tsubasa replied. “Apologies, it must have slipped my mind.”

“We don’t typically work with anyone outside our own crew,” Kanan said. “And when we do we already have some friends of our own we like to bring in. We don’t need you partnering us up with anyone.”

“Truly, I do understand that, Matsuura-san,” Tsubasa replied. “However, due to the particular nature of this job, I’ve found it appropriate to call in a very specific set of associates. I’m sure you’ll understand, once you meet them.” She paused at that point, quirking an eyebrow as she was interrupted by the sound of voices coming from the lower level of the club, before her lips curled up again. “Ah, speak of the devil,” she said. “That must be them. Come along, I’ll introduce you.” Before Dia and Kanan had the opportunity to object any further Tsubasa was suddenly up from her seat, strolling over towards the railing that circled around the edge of the balcony and offered a view down towards the lower level. Mari seemed all too happy to follow after Tsubasa and, exchanging a glance with each other, Dia and Kanan decided they really didn't have any other choice either. They walked towards the edge of the balcony, the other six members of Aqours getting up and trailing along behind them- only to stop dead in their tracks when they looked down over the railing, hearts jumping up into their throats.

“Ladies,” Tsubasa said, gesturing towards the nine well-dressed women who had just entered into the club down below. “Allow me to introduce you to μ's.”


	4. June 19th, 12:08 pm

If Aqours were a cheap fast food hamburger, µ's would be kobe beef at a Michelin star restaurant. If Aqours was watered down beer from a college party, µ's would be a fifty year old bottle of whiskey in a glass case at the fanciest bar in the city. And if Aqours was a less well known crime gang who had kept their names and their faces out of the media and were still establishing a reputation in their little criminal underworld, µ's were the modern day Al Capones.

Even if Tsubasa hadn’t introduced the group by name, every member of Aqours still would have known who they were looking at. There was no mistaking the blonde woman with the ponytail, sleeves of her suit jacket rolled up past her elbows, nor the dark haired woman with the vibrant green eyes hanging off her arm as they entered the club. Eli Ayase was the most recognizable member of the group, her name and face constantly plastered over everything from daytime news articles to financial periodical headlines, but to those who paid closer attention to the stories surrounding her the other faces would be familiar as well. Her wife Nozomi Toujou. Her lawyer Umi Sonoda. Her chief accountant Hanayo Koizumi. And five other faces, all of whom had been seen in connection with her at one point or another.

“Ayase-san! We’re up here! Come join us!” Tsubasa called out, greeting Eli like it wasn’t the first time the two had met each other. Eli looked up towards Tsubasa, as did the rest of µ's, before they began circling towards the staircase. Dia, meanwhile, seemed like she was about to faint.

“Th-That’s- Th-Those- Those are-”

“Pull it together, Dia,” Kanan said, putting a forceful hand on the other woman’s shoulder. Mari, meanwhile, seemed like she was trying to accomplish the exact opposite of reassuring Dia.

“So many celebrities in one day!” she hummed. “First Kira-san and now this? You’ll probably be remembering this for years to come! I certainly hope you don’t do anything to embarrass yourself.”

“Oh god, what if I do??” Dia blurted out. “What if I- I forget my own name, o-or-” As Dia stammered on and worked herself further into a panic Kanan shot a glare at an entirely unapologetic looking Mari, but they didn’t have much longer to worry about the issue. Just a moment later Eli Ayase was reaching the top of the stairs, the rest of µ's following along behind her.

“You look like you’ve made yourself comfortable here,” she said, looking directly at Tsubasa as she approached the rest of the group.

“Indeed we have,” Tsubasa replied. “Thank you again for opening your club up to us like this.”

“Wait!” Chika blurted out, apparently not feeling quite the same level of paralyzing intimidation in the presence of µ's that some of her colleagues seemed to be experiencing. “You own this place??”

“That she does,” Nozomi chimed in, looking in Chika’s direction and giving a coy smile while still hanging off her wife’s arm. “Through a shell corporation, of course. It’s useful for moving money around.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Ayase-san!” Dia finally managed to force herself to say, speaking at a volume that was a few steps above conversational. “I am-”

“Dia Kurosawa,” Eli interrupted, her lips twisting up into a confident smirk. “I’m aware. I did my research before coming here.” Even more of the color drained from Dia’s face when she realized Eli  _ actually knew who she was _ , and whatever burst of confidence she had found to actually allow her to speak seemed to disappear just as quickly as it had come on. Fortunately, as always, Kanan was there to pick up the slack.

“You’ll have to excuse her,” Kanan said. “Until a moment ago we weren’t aware anyone else would be joining us here.” And of course, upon saying that, she was prompted to look towards Tsubasa. “We still haven’t received an explanation about  _ why  _ you’re here either.”

“You haven’t filled them in on this little plan of yours yet, Kira-chan?” Nozomi asked.

“I’ve given them the brief summary, but as I was waiting for you to arrive before I went into detail,” Tsubasa replied. “But now that you’re here, I think we can get started. Aqours,” she said, shifting her attention back to the other group as she began to explain herself. “You’ll be working together with µ's for this job.”

“Pardon me,” Riko interrupted, “but… Why µ's? I know they’re the best at what they do, and I mean no disrespect, but this seems like the sort of task that’s better suited to a stealth operation. The members of µ's are all extremely recognizable, so to involve them in something like this…”

“Hey!” someone snapped back, and even from that single word their tone was biting and acerbic. Heads turned towards the source of the noise, a member of µ's with black hair and red eyes, who looked shorter and decidedly younger than everyone else. Despite that her arms were crossed, and her face was twisted into a spiteful scowl. “Do you always interrupt people when they’re talking like that? Let Kira-san finish!”

“It’s alright, Yazawa-san,” Tsubasa replied, dismissing Nico’s irritation with a wave of her hand. “It’s a perfectly valid question, and one I don’t blame any of you for having. To answer it, though… Under normal circumstances I would say that, yes, having them there would be a bit of a giveaway, and an unnecessary risk. But, for what I have in mind… Think of them less as key players, and more as, say, decoys.”

“Decoys,” Riko repeated, and it was obvious from her raised eyebrow and stern expression that she didn’t quite follow.

“That’s right,” Tsubasa said, nodding along. “Maybe it’s time to give you a better sense of what exactly I have planned out.”

“I’d reckon it is,” Kanan muttered under her breath, though Tsubasa chose to ignore the comment.

“In two weeks time I’ll be hosting an enormous launch party to celebrate the release of my upcoming album,” Tsubasa continued. “There will be hundreds of people from the industry in attendance, and I’m sure the presence of the renowned members of a notorious criminal organization like µ's would attract quite a bit of attention. If I were to, then, suddenly go missing during that party, law enforcement would be barreling down on µ's in no time.”

“I still don’t understand why that’s a good thing,” Riko argued.

“Because,” Tsubasa replied, raising a finger to silence her, “µ's won’t have had any part in this. They’ll just be there to attend the party as normal guests, enjoying their time there and attracting attention and suspicion while a  _ different  _ group of less recognizable criminals carries out the dirty work.”

“For the record, I still have issues with this plan as well,” another member of µ's said. She had red hair, cropped down to around her shoulders, and had her arms crossed over her chest in a fashion similar to Nico. “You’re basically asking us to paint a target on our backs. It seems a little too risky.”

“And what would make it risky, Nishikino-san?” Tsubasa replied. “Like I explained, none of you will actually be doing anything other than attending the party as normal guests. Besides, if some sort of trouble  _ were  _ to come up I’m sure Sonoda-san would easily be able to protect you from it,” she said, gesturing towards Umi. Umi had made a name for herself as Eli’s personal lawyer, but beyond that she actually represented all of µ's at various points, and there was no question that she was the best at what she did. It was rare that any one of them even made it to a courtroom in the first place, and on the few occasions that did happen Umi managed to make the prosecution look like an absolute joke. Eli could probably rob a store in broad daylight, wave to a security camera on the way out, and Umi would still get her off scot-free.

“We’re already past that point in the discussion anyway,” Eli reminded Maki. “Provided Aqours signs on to this plan as well, we’ve made our commitment.” Upon saying that eyes started to fall back on the nine members of Aqours, though especially on Kanan and Dia, two of the most vocal dissenters and two of the ones who seemed to hold the most decision making power.

“It sounds like you’ve already put a lot of thought into this,” Kanan said, meeting Tsubasa’s gaze. “But it all seems a little… Elaborate. Staging this at a huge party with tons of other people around seems like it’ll make this harder than it needs to be. It would be a lot easier to get at you while you’re alone in your home or something like that.”

“My security team monitors the the entire building where I live,” Tsubasa replied. “If they saw anyone coming who they weren’t expecting they would have the entire place locked down in seconds. At an enormous party, though, there will be hundreds of guests and staff members coming and going constantly. It will be easier for you to sneak in and slip through the cracks. Not to mention…” she added on, that disturbingly Mari-like smile returning to her lips again, “I suppose I just have a flair for showmanship. This  _ will _ be my last performance, after all, so I think I should make it a memorable one.”

“You’re insane,” Kanan stated.

“Perhaps,” Tsubasa replied. “But I’m also insanely wealthy, and you stand to benefit from that.”

“Getting to go to a big party like that  _ does _ sound kinda fun,” Chika said, earning herself a glare from Dia.

“It’s not about fun,” she scolded. “It’s about making sure we’re not throwing ourselves into a suicidal situation. Tell us more about this party,” she then continued, looking back at Tsubasa. “Where is it being held? What will be happening there? Who else will be in attendance?”

“The party is taking place at a large mansion my production company is renting out for the event,” Tsubasa began to answer. “Guests will mostly be contained to the foyer and the living and dining rooms, but they’ll also be setting up a stage in the atrium. I’m meant to give the guests time to arrive and settle in before coming out and performing one of the songs from the new album. After that I’ll come down from the stage and begin mingling with the guests. They’re mostly industry folks, other idols and their producers and managers and talent scouts and the like, but there will be plenty of service staff there as well. Caterers, bartenders, light and sound technicians, valets, those sorts. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

“What about a floor plan of the mansion?” Riko asked. “Would you be able to get us access to that?”

“And the names of the contractor companies, zura?” Hanamaru added on.

“You’re all so detail-oriented,” Tsubasa chuckled. “I’ll take that to be a good sign.”

“If we’re gonna be hatching a plan as crazy as this one,” Kanan said, “then we’re gonna need every single piece of information we can get.”

“And should I take that to mean you  _ are _ , in fact, hatching a plan?” Tsubasa asked, turning her eyes to Kanan. Kanan stared back for a few seconds, holding that gaze until she finally let out a low, quiet sigh.

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess you should.”

“Well in that case,” Tsubasa replied, “we should all probably get to work.”

* * *

The eighteen members of Aqours and µ's, plus Tsubasa Kira herself, had ended up spread out across the upper level of the club, gathering together in smaller groups around the various couches and tables while they plotted out different parts of the operation.

“Experience Productions Sound and Lightning, huh?” You said, looking down at the corporate website she’d brought up on her phone. “Kind of a stupid sounding name. From all these pictures their employee uniforms look pretty simple, though.”

“I could probably help you work on the costumes if you wanted,” Kotori Minami offered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to do any undercover work.”

“Can I see that, zura?” Hanamaru asked, leaning over to peer at You’s phone screen.

“Yeah, sure,” You replied, just about to hand her phone over to Hanamaru before she stopped herself. “Or… Maybe I can just show it to you.”

“Ooh, ooh!” Honoka Kousaka said from the next table over. “What if you make a bomb and blow out the wall of the mansion?”

“Yeah!” Chika enthusiastically agreed. “That way we don’t have to deal with the security at the entrance!”

“Plus it’ll create a huge distraction! Like, BOOM!”

“And it’ll look totally cool!”

“Totally!”

“My god,” Riko said, staring at the scene unfolding in front of her in horror. “There’s…”

“There’s two of them,” Umi finished, watching from alongside her, equally terrified.

“...Which would cause a suitable distraction to allow the others to move freely,” Maki went on, finishing up an explanation and jotting down sketches on the back of a napkin while Yoshiko and Nico observed. “Are you alright with that role, Tsushima-san?”

“But of course,” Yoshiko replied, deep laughter coming from her chest. “What more suited role could there be than for me to act as a harbinger of chaos and destruction? Yohane will become the very embodiment of-”

“If you ask me all this planning crap is unnecessary anyway,” Nico interrupted, taking the wind right out of Yoshiko’s sails. “You don’t need a whole big scheme to get stuff done. Just get in there and bust some Nico Nico Kneecaps.”

“It’s always a heavy-handed approach with you,” Maki replied, rolling her eyes. “It’s a miracle you’re not dead yet.”

“Distraction squad, distraction squad!” Rin Hoshizora was chanting from somewhere else in the room, tossing an arm around a very startled looking Ruby. “That was always my job too! Rin made a good distraction!”

“R-Rin-chan…” Hanayo said. “Don’t frighten her…”

“No, it’s alright,” Ruby insisted, shaking her head before looking up at Rin. “Um… Do you have any tips?”

The scene around the upper tier of the club was certainly a chaotic one, but at least it seemed like genuine progress was being made. As the other members of Aqours and µ's talked and plotted together, the table Tsubasa had originally been sitting at was now occupied by her once again, along with the de facto leadership of the two groups: Kanan, Mari, Dia, Eli, And Nozomi.

“I already have arrangements made to leave the country once you can get me away from my security team,” Tsubasa was in the midst of saying. “As long as you can get me out of that party and make sure we’re not followed, you shouldn’t need to worry about me beyond that.”

“We maintain a number of safe houses near the city as well,” Eli added on, looking towards the three members of Aqours. “In case any of us ever need a place to hide out for a while. We can offer the use of one of them to keep Kira-san hidden until she’s ready to leave Japan.”

“So we just have to get her from the mansion to the safe house?” Kanan asked. “That seems simple enough.”

“Simple for  _ you _ ,” Dia huffed. “You won’t be the one who has to worry about getting her  _ out _ of the mansion in the first place.”

“Well maybe if you were a better driver we could trade places,” Kanan replied, shrugging her shoulders. “But that sounds like your problem.”

“Are they always like this?” Nozomi asked, looking towards Mari, though the smile on her lips indicated that she found their bickering more entertaining than irritating.

“Always,” Mari replied, smiling triumphantly. “Fortunately I’m here to keep the peace between them.” As she said that she reached out to either side of her, simultaneously grabbing both Kanan and Mari’s cheeks and pinching them affectionately. Neither of them seemed amused.

“Mari!” they both huffed in unison, swatting her hands away and turning up their noses.

“See?” Mari said. “It’s sort of a common enemy thing.” Nozomi chuckled at that, though Eli’s expression was still gravely serious.

“I don’t mean to cast doubt on anyone’s talents,” she said, turning to look towards Tsubasa. “But… I’m sure you understand what a demanding job this will be, and how many things could go wrong along the way. Are you sure you’re confident about this?” The question sounded more like it should have been directed towards Aqours themselves, but Eli was still looking directly at the one who had hired them all.

“I have faith in the people I’ve chosen for this job,” Tsubasa replied. “You all are some of the best in the business, after all, and I know what you’re capable of.” There was a strange, tense silence in the air after she said that, but after a moment or two Dia broke it.

“Thank you,” she said, nodding slightly. “Your vote of confidence is appreciated.”

“I don’t mean to sound like I’m not confident in you as well,” Eli said. “It’s just… Larger organizations than yours have been brought down because they bit off more than they could chew. I want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourselves into.”

“Oh, give them a little credit Elicchi,” Nozomi cut in, draping an arm across Eli’s chest as she leaned up against her wife. “Or do I need to remind you how much they stole from your casino? Eight hundred million yen, was it?” The moment Nozomi mentioned that Dia and Kanan both went pale in the face, and Dia only barely managed to stammer out a response.

“Th-That was- Y-You- That w-was YOUR casino??”

“It was,” Eli replied, lips curling up into a sly smile. “I had a suspicion the nine of you were behind that job, so thank you for confirming it just now.” At that point Dia felt even stupider, and was in the middle of deciding it would probably be better for her never to speak again. Mari, meanwhile, was absolutely dying from laughter, and Eli at least didn’t seem like she was too angry about it. “That’s all water under the bridge now, though,” she promised, extending a hand out across the table. “At present, I’m just pleased to be working on the same side as your for a change.”

“You flatter us,” Mari replied, being the one to reach out and take Eli’s hand, shaking it firmly. “I promise you, the pleasure is all ours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was this entire fic just an excuse to use the phrase "bust some Nico Nico kneecaps?" Why yes. Yes it was.


	5. June 30th, 7:09 pm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I expected to fall behind during the holidays but then I got laid out by a fever right after that, and now here we are. Thank you all for your patience, and I hope it's worth the wait!

“And you’re sure this is something you want to get involved in?”

“C’mon, Dia-san,” Sarah Kazuno’s voice came from the other end of the phone. “We might not be as reckless as your lot, but you know we’re not cowards.”

“Very well,” Dia replied. “We’ll be counting on you.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way. Now get some rest,” Sarah said. “You’ll be needing it.”

“I should say the same to you. Have a good evening.”

“Later.” The call clicked to an end, and as Dia set her phone aside she looked up and Kanan and Mari, who were both sitting in seats across from her. They were back in Mari’s penthouse room in the hotel she managed, Mari lounging around with a leisurely expression and a familiar glass of whiskey in her hand while Kanan had a far more focused look on her face.

“Well?” she asked Dia. “That sounded good, right?”

“Indeed,” Dia replied, nodding. “We can count on their support.”

“You see?” Mari hummed, swishing her drink around with an idle motion while her voice took on a careless tone. “I told the two of you there was nothing to be afraid of! You’re always such worrywarts.”

“Forgive us for being cautious,” Dia said, not actually sounding apologetic at all. It was the day before their job at Tsubasa’s concert was meant to take place, and the energy in the room was a tense one. While Mari didn’t seem to be particularly concerned about what the next day would have in store for them, Dia and Kanan both couldn’t help but have their reservations. It would be, without a doubt, the most challenging job they had ever taken on, and it was only natural that they would be nervous. Nervous enough that it seemed to be the only thing either of them had been capable of thinking about for several days now.

“There’s cautious and there’s high-strung, and I think you’re firmly on the wrong side of that line, Dia-san.” Mari wagged her finger in a scolding motion while she spoke, and Dia was left trying her hardest to find out how, exactly, _she_ was the one who had ended up getting chastised in this situation.

“If Dia’s too high-strung,” Kanan said, which she wasn’t necessarily going to disagree with, “then you’re not nearly high-strung enough. You could probably both stand to learn something from each other.” That said, while the comment was technically directed at both of them, her pointed glare was focused specifically on Mari. And Mari, of course, simply dismissed it with another bit of laughter.

“So serious! So stern!” she hummed. “You’re like a sexy teacher, Kanan. You know I’m weak to that.”

“That wasn’t what I was going for,” Kanan insisted.

“Then you should be a little more careful about what sort of tone you take with me,” Mari replied. As she said that she set her glass down against the table beside her with a small clink, before pushing herself up from her chair and rising to her feet. She strolled towards where Kanan was seated, moving with a leisurely sashaying motion that seemed just a bit more exaggerated than it needed to be. As she reached Kanan, before her colleague had a chance had to react to her presence, Mari was suddenly dropping down into her lap, straddling Kanan and draping her arms around the other woman’s neck, looking down at her with a sly smile.

“What are you doing?” Kanan asked, looking back up at Mari and speaking with a tone and expression that both remained completely flat.

“You’ve seem a little tense,” Mari cooed back, running her hand along one of Kanan’s shoulders. “It’s not good to go into a big job all stressed out, dear.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dia’s voice came from across the room, at which point Mari looked back over her shoulder with another playful smile.

“Don’t you worry, Dia. I haven’t forgotten about you over there,” she promised, extending a hand in Dia’s direction and gesturing her forward.

“Mari.”

“Dia.” Dia simply stared back at Mari for a few more seconds, and Mari stared back at her in turn, until Dia finally broke and pulled her eyes off to the side, blushing faintly. Mari saw that as her window, sliding out of Kanan’s lap just as abruptly as she had dropped into it in the first place and practically bouncing across the room, before suddenly dropping into Dia’s lap in the same way she had just been straddling Kanan.

“You really have a one track mind, don’t you?” Dia murmured, still avoiding eye contact with Mari.

“Maybe,” Mari replied, hands taking hold of the front of Dia’s button-up shirt. “But I could say the same thing about you. The only difference is that your one track is all focused on business, while mine… Well, you know,” she chuckled, letting the thought finish itself before looking back over her shoulder again. “Kanan,” she hummed. “Come join us, won’t you? I think Dia misses you.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Dia protested, though Mari chose to ignore her.

“You really are unbelievable,” Kanan sighed. Despite that, though, she was already standing up from her seat, walking over towards the other two women. “I don’t know why I put up with you sometimes.”

“Because you love me,” Mari answered, hooking a finger underneath the bottom of Kanan’s shirt to pull her in the rest of the way once she was close enough. “You both love me,” she then said, turning her attention back to the red-faced Dia still sitting underneath her. “And I’m about to remind you why.”

* * *

The old cliffside was quiet and peaceful, currently undisturbed by the noises of any hikers or campers. The only sounds were the wind blowing through the trees, the birds singing back and forth to each other, running water a short distance away- and then a deafening, almost explosive blast as an upright wooden log sitting near the edge of the rock wall went from existing to… Not.

The log had been sitting at the bottom of the cliff on a wide open stretch of flat, rocky terrain, which was now being showered with bits of wood as the remains of the target rained back down. A good distance away, about a hundred yards, were two figures, both clad in headphones and protective glasses. One figure was standing, while the other was laying flat on the ground, holding onto a positively massive gun. Whenever Riko Sakurauchi needed to blow off some steam, a .50 caliber Barrett M82 was a good way to accomplish that. It was extremely powerful, and extremely, _extremely_ illegal for her to own.

“Christ,” Yoshiko said, standing above Riko as she watched the remains of the log land back down in a scattered pile around where a solid object had been just a moment prior. “That thing really doesn’t mess around, huh?”

“I told you,” Riko replied, clicking the safety into place before lifting herself back into a sitting position. She took her headphones off, setting them on the ground beside her, and Yoshiko followed suit, holding her own by her side.

“What would you ever even need something like that for?” she asked. The Barret was the most recent addition to Riko’s collection, purchased with some of the money from their casino job, and this was the first time she had actually gotten to put it to use. At Yoshiko’s question, however, an unamused look appeared on Riko’s face.

“What would I need it for?” she repeated. “It’s not about needing it for anything. It’s just about… Having it.”

“You’re just as bad as Kanan-san is with her cars sometimes.”

“That’s not very nice,” Riko huffed, pouting up at her girlfriend. “You’re not going to give me some fallen angel speech here? I was expecting something about… A worthy avatar of destruction, or a harbinger of death, or something like that.”

“Sorry,” Yoshiko murmured. “I guess I’m just out of it right now.” Riko’s pout deepened into a full frown at that point, and she patted the spot on the ground next to her.

“Talk to me,” she urged. “What’s wrong?” Yoshiko looked down at the area Riko had gestured to, seeming to hesitate for just a moment before complying and taking a seat on the ground next to her girlfriend.

“I’m just… Nervous about tomorrow, I guess,” she admitted. “Aren’t you?” That time it was Riko who fell silent for a moment, before giving a slow nod.

“Well… Yeah. Of course I’m a little bit nervous,” she replied. “I think we’re all probably nervous right now. But… I have faith in all of our friends. And I have faith in you,” she promised, placing a hand on Yoshiko’s knee. “There are a lot of people we can count on. That helps a lot, doesn’t it?”

“I know,” Yoshiko replied. “But it’s still just… We’ve never done something like this before. It’s stressful, you know? Thinking about what would happen if we screwed this up-”

“Then don’t think about that,” Riko interrupted. “Fallen angels don’t have any time to waste thinking about what would happen if they screwed up, because they know they’re not _going_ to screw up. They’re too powerful for that.” It sounded stupid, especially lacking context, but Riko knew her girlfriend well enough to know what she was saying. She was one of the few people who got to see Yoshiko’s fallen angel persona come down so often, and as a result she was one of the few people who actually had a good understanding of why Yoshiko acted that way in the first place: Yoshiko Tsushima could be shy, or timid, or unsure of herself. She could be easily scared by things, especially when it came to the uncertainties of the future. There were a lot of parts of herself Yoshiko Tsushima didn’t like. But Yohane the fallen angel was none of those things. She felt no nervousness, no uncertainty, no hesitation. She was confident, fearless, and entirely sure of herself. It was an odd sort of coping mechanism, but if it worked for her, who was Riko to cast aspersions?

“Riko,” Yoshiko sighed. “I just told you, I-”

“I’m not Riko,” Riko interrupted. “I’m Riri, the little demon,” she declared, swallowing back the better part of her pride to say that out loud. “And I want to see the fallen angel Yohane pick up this gun and rain hellfire and destruction down upon this shooting range!” As she said that Riko watched Yoshiko eagerly, waiting for any hint of a reaction. A few moments passed before Yoshiko said anything, but after a couple of seconds Riko saw a sinister smile stretching over her lips, and she heard her girlfriend let out a deep chuckle.

“Well… Since you asked so kindly, little Riri, I suppose it would be rude to leave one of my little demons disappointed.”

“You’re never gonna let me forget this, are you?”

“A fallen angel’s memory is as eternal as her lifeblood, little Riri.”

“Great,” Riko groaned. Despite that, though, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She was just happy to see her girlfriend back in high spirits.

* * *

“C’mon Chika-chan, harder! You can do better than this! Pound me like you mean it!”

“Phrasing, You-chan!” Chika threw a few more punches before doubling over, completely out of breath, sweat running down her forehead, while You stood there in front of her with one hand at her hip and a smug grin on her face. The two of them were standing in the middle of a boxing ring at a gym, Chika wearing boxing gloves on her hands while You was wearing a pair of target pads on her own. You was wearing an athletic top that left her toned, muscular arms and abs on full display, and between that and Chika’s exhausted state it was clear that she was the more athletic of the two of them.

“You’re not tapping out on me already, are you?” You asked. “I thought we were just getting started.”

“You-chaaaaaaan!” Chika whined. “This is haaaaaard!”

“You’re just out of shape.”

“If Chika-chan is tired… Can I try?” Hanamaru’s voice chimed up from outside of the ring. She had just been watching so far, coming with Chika and You to the gym simply because she had nothing else to do that day, but now that she had volunteered to give it a go Chika seemed all too eager to sub her in.

“Get these things off of me,” she wheezed, still out of breath as she stumbled for the edge of the ring and pulled the gloves off of her hands. She tossed them over the edge towards Hanamaru, who squealed as she scrambled to catch them. Not a great start, You thought to herself, though it was probably better that Hanamaru was going to be the one doing the punching, rather than the one getting punched.

Once she had the gloves fastened onto her hands Hanamaru climbed up over the edge into the ring, and Chika slid out underneath the bottom rope, immediately going to flop down in the bleachers. You rolled her eyes, then looked back towards Hanamaru, who was walking up to a stop in front of her.

“Alright,” You said, raising her hands up to provide targets for Hanamaru. “Throw a quick punch, let me see how your form’s doing.”

“Okay, zura…” Hanamaru murmured back. She made a serious, focused expression, looking at the pads before letting loose with her first punch. It was lackluster, to say the least, coming from a limp arm that barely even managed to move You’s own hand when the blow struck.

“See?” Chika called from the bleachers. “It’s not as easy as You-chan pretends it is!”

“If you were really so out of breath you wouldn’t be shouting!” You called back, before lowering her voice to a reasonable volume to speak to Hanamaru. “Try that again, but this time keep your elbow down and closer to your side when you throw the punch,” she explained. “It’ll engage more of your muscles and let you put more force behind it.”

“Like… Like this?” Hanamaru asked, lowering her arms down so both her elbows were against her toros, with her hands out in from of her.

“Yeah, perfect!” You said, nodding her encouragement. “Now go ahead and give me another hit, alright?”

“Okay…” Hanamaru threw another punch then, more of a jab than a hook this time, and while it was still nothing impressive it was a marked improvement compared to the last attempt.

“See? You’re getting the hang of this!” You told her. “Now give me a few in a row, alternating hands. Ready?”

“Ready, zura,” Hanamaru replied, before starting to unleash her fury upon You. The jabs still lacked any real amount of force, and the way Hanamaru shifted her weight back and forth as she switched between hands was a bit uncoordinated, but You saw promise. Unfortunately, just like Chika, it didn’t take long for Hanamaru to start breathing heavily.

“That’s tiring, zura…” she murmured, letting her arms drop as her flurry of blows came to an end.

“I told you!” Chika called from the stands again.

“That just means she’s as out of shape as you are!” You called back. “But that was good for a first go, Maru-chan,” she quickly added on, not wanting to discourage her new protege. “You’re welcome to join us here any time you want to from now on.”

“We’ll… We’ll see about that,” Hanamaru replied, still sounding winded as she tried to catch her breath. In her head, You knew she needed to get Kanan to come to the gym with her again sometime soon. At least then she would have someone who was able to keep up with her. For the time being, though…

“Alright,” You said, starting to remove the target pads from her hands as a grin stretched over her face. “Now who wants to let me punch them?”

* * *

It was relatively dark in Ruby’s apartment, lit only by the glow of a TV screen and the fading sunlight outside the window. She and Leah were sitting on the couch together, next to each other but with a small gap between them, Ruby stretched out a bit more while Leah had her knees up to her chest. They had been watching a movie since before it had started to get dark, and neither of them had bothered to get up to turn on a light, leaving the room to slowly get dimmer and dimmer around them.

Ruby’s apartment was a modest one. Nice, but modest. With her family’s fortune, coupled with the money she earned from being in Aqours, she easily could have afforded something grandiose and opulent, some penthouse like the one Mari lived in, with marble floors and golden chandeliers and a both a jacuzzi and a waterfall shower in the bathroom, but that wasn’t really Ruby’s style. She preferred something small and cozy, fitted to the single person who lived there. She didn’t need much space, and living in a home the size of Mari’s would probably just feel empty and lonely most of the time. She was perfectly content with what she had.

“Hey,” Leah said, speaking up for the first time in quite a while. Ruby looked over towards her, though in doing so she found that Leah’s eyes were still looking dead ahead, glued to the TV.

“Hmm?” Ruby replied.

“I’m… Thinking. About tomorrow.”

“What about it?” Ruby asked.

“Well… Are you scared?” Leah’s question caused Ruby to go silent for a few seconds, simply thinking her answer over for a few moments. Then, eventually, she ended up nodding.

“Yeah. I’m a little bit scared,” she admitted, prompting Leah to glance over at her out of the corner of her eye.

“Really?” she asked.

“Well, of course I’m gonna be a little bit scared,” Ruby answered. “Every time we take on a job like this we’re putting ourselves in danger, so I think it’s normal to be a little bit scared. But… I’m used to being scared of stuff,” she said, before holding her hands up in front of her chest and puffing her cheeks out in a determined expression. “Just because you’re scared of something doesn’t mean you should let that stop you from doing it! In fact… I think sometimes being afraid is just one more reason that you should.”

“But… Sometimes there’s good reasons to be afraid,” Leah insisted. “Sometimes it means it’s dangerous”

“Dangerous how?” Ruby asked.

“Dangerous like… Like what if something goes wrong tomorrow?” Leah asked. “What if someone gets hurt, or caught…”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Ruby asked. Leah briefly fell quiet again, and then she gave a response that wasn’t technically an answer to the question, but that told Ruby all she needed to know anyway.

“Just… Promise me you’ll be safe tomorrow, okay?” she asked.

“I promise,” Ruby replied, “as long as you promise me the same thing.” She extended a hand after saying that, stretching a single pinky up and offering it to Leah. Leah looked back at it for a moment, almost seeming doubtful over the idea of a pinky promise in a situation as serious as this one. But, rather than questioning, she simply ended up going along with it, outstretching one of her own hands and wrapping her pinky around Ruby’s.

“I promise too.”

“Good,” Ruby said, unwinding their fingers before a little smile appeared on her face, a thought popping into her mind. “Hey. Close your eyes.”

“Huh?” Leah mumbled, furrowing her brow. “Why?”

“Just trust me, okay?” Ruby insisted.

“Alright…” Leah was still skeptical, but she did as she was told, shutting her eyes and blacking out her vision. “Why am I doing this?” she asked. Her question was answered not by words, though, but by the sound of quiet movement, the feeling of something shifting on the couch, and then by an unusual sensation: lips against her own. Ruby was kissing her.

_Ruby was kissing her_.

A wave of adrenaline bolted through Leah when she realized that, and her eyes shot open just in time to see Ruby pulling back, an adorable smile on her face. “For good luck,” Ruby said, though Leah was still in so much shock she only partially processed that. Her face was flushed bright red, her heart was racing, and her breathing was coming just a little bit too quickly.

“You- You kissed me-” she managed to stammer out, stating the already obvious.

“Mhmm,” Ruby replied, nodding in response. “I did. Is that okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Leah replied, then buried her face down between her knees before she said or did anything else that would embarrass her further. Ruby just smiled to herself, scooting closer on the couch and putting an arm around Leah’s shoulders.

“Good.”


	6. August 1st, 7:43 pm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have already noticed, I bumped the chapter count up from 7 to 8 with this update. As this chapter went on it was getting a lot longer than I expected, and I found what felt like a natural stopping point halfway through. Given that I'm already behind on updates anyway I decided it would work better to break it up and post the first half now, rather than having a single chapter that ended up being about a third of the length of the entire fic, hence the increase. Thanks for everyone's patience as I've worked on these updates, and I hope you enjoy!

The party at the mansion was more extravagant than anything the members of Aqours could have imagined- and that was saying something. The mansion itself was an enormous, sprawling home, built near the top of a hill, with perfectly maintained grounds stretching out around it in every direction. A wide lawn lead up towards the front of the mansion, neatly trimmed hedges lining a wide cobblestone driveway. Behind the house there were expansive gardens full of carefully arranged flowerbeds and mazes of twisting paths, though they weren’t being used for the sake of the party. Expensive luxury cars were continuously rolling up to the front of the building before the drivers handed their keys over to valets, who brought them around to a designated lot out back and out of sight, separated from the rest of the grounds by an enormously tall hedge wall. Though dusk was slowly beginning to set in, the mansion itself was lit up like a beacon, bright lights shining out through the many windows to illuminate the grounds around it.

Inside the building, crowds had already started to gather. People were most concentrated in the enormous entryway, swarming around the stage that had been constructed from both the ground level and the upper balcony that circled around the room. Some people were more spread out, though, dispersing into drawing rooms and dining rooms, finding slightly more quiet places for conversations, or finding places to sit as they sipped on cocktails and snacked on hors d’oeuvres that had been served to them by well-dressed caterers, moving through the party with silver trays in their hands. The guests were dressed to the nines as well, men wearing sleek suits or tuxedos while the women mostly wore ornate dresses that surely cost more than many people earned in a month. And, somewhere in the middle of this crowd, a group of women had begun to gather.

“I can’t believe they made me take off my  _ shoes _ ,” Dia grumbled, still complaining about the rigorous security checkpoint by the front entrance, as she had been for the past few minutes now. “Did they not see how tight these are? Do they really think I would have had room to sneak a weapon in?”

“You can never be too careful, Dia-san,” Mari replied, flashing her partner in crime a coy smile. “You never know what sorts of people will show up to an event like this.” Dia rolled her eyes at that, walking up the staircase towards the upper level of the balcony before her eyes fell on the exact person she had been looking for. Dia stepped forward, reaching out and tapping the shoulder of the woman leaning over the balcony.

“Ayase-san,” she said. “I was hoping we would find you here.” Eli Ayase leaning over the railing slightly, looking down at the mass of people below, but even from behind her blonde ponytail was almost immediately recognizable to Dia. Eli was one of the few women attending the event in a suit, though her wife was wearing a dress, hanging off Eli’s arm as she so often did. At the sound of the voice and the feeling of the tap the two of them turned to look back over their shoulders, and Eli smiled at their new companions.

“It’s good to see you,” Eli replied, turning and standing up straight. “Are you excited for the show?” There was, of course, a subtext to that question, but it was one neither of them were going to say out loud when there were so many other people around.

“We’re very excited,” Mari replied, butting into the conversation as she walked up alongside Dia and took hold of her arm, much in the same way Nozomi was holding Eli’s. “I think this will be a night to remember for everyone involved!”

“What Mari  _ means  _ to say,” Dia added on, “is that we’re very much looking forward to it. Are the rest of your…  _ friends _ here?” she then asked, glancing around at their surroundings, and at the people near them.

“They are, though I think we’ve lost track of most of them by this point,” Eli said. “Kotori ran off to fawn over dresses and took Umi with her, and Nico-chan and Maki are…”

“Off in a broom closet somewhere, no doubt,” Nozomi teased. “Just like we could be right now, Elicchi.” Eli’s face flushed at the comment, though she chose to try to ignore it.

“As for the others,” she said, “it looks like they’re all getting along just fine.” Dia quirked an eyebrow at that, but as Eli gestured back over the edge of the balcony she stepped closer, staring down into the throng beneath her. It took her a moment to figure out where Eli was even gesturing towards, but after a second or two she was able to pick her sister’s bright red hair out from the crowd, and she quickly started to make out the faces of those around her as well. Ruby was standing with Hanamaru and Chika, as per their plan, though as Dia looked closer she realized those three were also caught up in a conversation with Honoka, Rin, and Hanayo. Dia couldn’t make out what they were talking about from such a distance, but from how animated they all were, it seemed as if they were having a good time.

“Look at that,” Mari hummed, squeezing Dia’s arm a bit more tightly. “Ruby-chan’s making some new friends! You’re not about to get all over-protective again, are you?”

“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dia grumbled back, pulling herself away from the balcony and looking back at Eli and Nozomi.

“What about the others?” Eli asked, keeping her language vague once again. “Are they here as well?”

“They should be,” Dia replied. “Though we didn’t come together. I’ve yet to see them.”

“But they  _ are  _ coming?” Eli asked.

“Yes,” Dia replied. “They should be on their way in right now.”

* * *

While the main entrance to the mansion was filled with guests as they filed inside towards the party, the side entrances were surrounded by vans and trucks, a constant bustle of workers going in and out of the building, pushing carts and crates and carrying enormous boxes with them as they went. From security guards to caterers to sound and lighting technicians to every other sort of personnel necessary to pull off an event of this size, uniformed staff members were constantly rushing back and forth, trying to get all the final touches in place before the party began in proper. In the middle of that rush of people, two faces had managed to blend themselves in seamlessly.

“They really went all out for this thing, didn’t they?” said You Watanabe- or, as the fake documentation Hanamaru had made up identified her, Konatsu Hakozaki. She was dressed head to toe in the uniform of Experience Productions Sound and Lightning, wearing all black with the company logo printed in large white lettering across the back of her shirt. She was pushing with her a large trunk, the metal and laminate sort used for storing and transporting audio equipment, and opposite her was another identically dressed woman helping to pull the trunk along.

“Why does this thing have to be so heavy?” groaned Yoshiko “Koyuki Kodama” Tsushima. “My arms feel like they’re gonna fall off.”

“This is why you should work out more, Kodama-chan,” You teased. As they pushed the container along they started to approach one of the side entrances to the mansion, though as they got closer to the door they were suddenly stopped by a man stepping out in front of them.

“Where’s this going?” he asked. Based on his attire he was clearly a part of the security team, and he was glancing down at a clipboard that You assumed contained a list of what was meant to go where during the party. That was a checklist their particularly delivery wasn’t going to be on. Thankfully, You had been prepared for this.

“One of the speakers on the stage wasn’t working right when they were doing sound tests earlier, so we’re bringing in a spare,” she said, tapping the top of the case. As she made that claim the security guard looked at her throw narrowed eyes, seeming a little bit skeptical, before looking down at his sheet again.

“They didn’t tell me anything about this,” he stated.

“Well it was a pretty last minute thing. Probably just slipped under their radar.”

“We’re not supposed to let anything through that’s not on the list,” the guard insisted, tapping the surface of his clipboard. When he said that You sighed, before leaning in over the case a little more, getting closer and dropping her voice down.

“Hey, c’mon man. I know you’re just doing your job but I’m trying to do the same thing over here. Divas like Kira are fucking  _ scary _ , and I don’t wanna get my head ripped off because we didn’t get this in there before the show was supposed to start. So can you just cut us a break and let us through?” The guard still looked hesitant even after You said that, eyes darting back and forth a few times between his clipboard, the door, You and Yoshiko, and their uniforms. But, eventually, he nodded slightly, lowering his clipboard and stepping to the side.

“Yeah, alright,” he conceded. “Just go through quick.”

“Thanks, man,” You said, flashing him a grin. “I appreciate it. Let’s go, Kodama-chan!” With that she started to push the container once again, with Yoshiko helping to pull it along from the other side. They got it through the door and into one of the halls in the back part of the mansion, bringing it a bit further down before You glanced back over her shoulder, making sure they were alone and out of earshot of the guard. “See?” she then told Yoshiko. “Easy.”

“Very impressive, my little demon,” Yoshiko replied, letting out a sinister laugh as she spoke. “Your skills of deception are certainly a force to be feared. If I didn’t know any better, I might even think they were threatening to surpass my own.”

“Stay focused,” You interrupted, deadpanning as she looked back at Yoshiko. “We’ve got a job to do.”

“You never let me have any fun!” Yoshiko whined. Deflated, she slumped down over the edge of the container, and You suddenly found herself doing the brunt of the work as they pushed it down the hall. They knew they were starting to get closer to their destination when they could hear voices a little further ahead, a whole cacophony of them talking over each other and echoing through the space. They started to notice cords and wires and cables as well, taped down against the floor, running out from underneath the doors that lead into the makeshift backstage area of the foyer and disappearing deeper into the mansion.

“Alright,” You said, bringing the crate to a stop. “You know where you’re going from here?”

“Yeah,” Yoshiko replied, glancing down at the wires along the floor. “It seems pretty straightforward.”

“And you’ve got your walkie-talkie?”

“Right here,” she added, tapping the plastic device hanging against her hip. Both You and Yoshiko had one, though unlike the walkie-talkies a few other staff members around the mansion were carrying, they were turned to a different frequency, only set to be able to talk to each other.

“Good. Then let’s split.”

“Best of luck, my little demon,” Yoshiko said, grinning at You. You simply rolled her eyes as Yoshiko moved away from the container, starting to disappear down the hall in the direction the wires led while leaving You on her own. You moved around to the other side of the large case now, grabbing one of the handles and starting to pull it with her towards the door. It was a little bit harder to move as only one person, but You had the advantage of being the most physically fit member of Aqours by a longshot, aside from perhaps Kanan, and she managed to make do. Her back pushed up against the door to get it open, giving her access to the area behind the stage in the foyer, still pulling the container with her as she went.

As soon as You entered into the foyer the voices of the gathered crowd became much louder, though she still couldn’t actually see them, separated from the rest of the room by the large curtains that blocked off the stage. The space behind the stage was a little bit narrow, making it slightly hard to navigate, and as You looked around she noticed several other staff members working on last minute adjustments to make sure all the lighting and audio equipment was in the right place, but none of them seemed to be paying attention to her. Good.

Without saying a word to anyone else You began pushing the case along again, bringing it through the back of the stage and around to the side. There were two wings along the edges of the stage that, unlike the main portion itself, weren’t concealed by curtains, though the area between the stage and the wall was so narrow that they might as well have been hidden anyway. It was even harder to navigate the case through that small area, and it bumped up against walls or lighting stands several times along the way, but eventually You managed to get all the way to the end. The wing opened out into the rest of the foyer near the corner of the room- specifically, near the bottom of one of the staircases that lead up to the balcony level. As You finally reached this point she pushed the container up against the wall, trying to leave it at least slightly inconspicuous and out of the way, then looked out into the crowd. Her eyes scanned through the mass of people, mostly focusing on the upper level for a few seconds until, suddenly, they landed on Dia. You looked at her, and even from a distance she could see Dia staring straight back at her. The two of them held that gaze for a moment, and then You turned and walked away, disappearing back behind the stage once again.

“They’re here,” Dia said, interrupting the idle chatter that had been going on between the rest of the group (though, mainly, between Mari and Nozomi). Mari looked over at Dia, then glanced down towards the stage, also stealing a look at the large storage container You had just left behind.

“ _ Splendid! _ ” she said, in her thickly accented English. “Now just as long as Kanan and Riko-chan didn’t get stuck in traffic that means we’re all accounted for, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t jinx it,” Dia replied. “It’s still not too late for something like that to happen.”

“I think you’re worrying too much about this,” Eli chimed in. “You’ve never run into any sort of trouble before, have you?”

“Well… No,” Dia admitted. “But this just feels different.”

“You’ll be fine,” Eli promised her. “You just focus on doing what you do best and we’ll focus on taking the heat for you.”

“Telling Dia not to worry is like telling a fish not to swim,” Mari teased, tossing an arm around a less-than-enthused-looking Dia’s shoulders as she said that. “I’d be very impressed if you could actually make that happen.” Any worries Dia might still have been harboring, however, wouldn’t have a chance to hang over her much longer. Just as Mari said that the lights in the room suddenly began to grow dimmer, and a hush fell over the crowd as they did. Almost instantaneously everyone’s attention seemed to be on the stage towards the front of the room, tense with anticipation. Eli walked closer to the edge of the balcony again, leaning over the railing and staring down at the large, thick curtain through the relative darkness of the foyer, a smirk spreading over her lips.

“Well,” she said, “looks like it’s showtime.”

Almost as if on cue, several lights flicked on around the edges of the stage as soon as Eli had spoken. They were dimmer, and multi-colored, framing the curtain in an almost ethereal glow. As they lit up a noise also started to fill the room, coming from the towers of speakers lined up on either side of the stage. It was a slow, heavy beat, reverberating through the walls and the ceiling, starting out quiet but progressively growing louder. The beats were spaced widely at first as well, but with each one that passed they seemed to grow a little closer together, tempo gradually increasing as the tension built in the room. Each thud of the heavy bass seemed to have people moving closer to the stage, clambering to see whatever was surely about to happen, and the beats kept coming faster and faster until they were nearly a single solid note, drowning out any other noise in the room. And then, just as the noise finally reached a crescendo, a voice came echoing through the speakers.

“Hello everyone! Thank you all so much for being here tonight!” As the idol said that spotlights suddenly flooded the stage, the curtain dropped away, and Tsubasa Kira was shown to be standing there on center stage in full costume, arms raised up to greet the crowd, almost looking larger than life in such an environment. The audience broke out into cheers and applause. And backstage, You pressed down the button on her walkie-talkie.

“It’s time,” she said.

“Roger that,” came the deep voice from the other end. “Yohane is in position.”

Tsubasa didn’t spend any time exchanging pleasantries with the crowd after that initial greeting. She knew what they were there for, after all, and she intended to give it to them- at least, for a little while longer. As colorful lights shone down and flashed onto the stage in time to a heavy electronic beat that had started coming through the speakers once again Tsubasa began to sing, and even from backstage You could hear the familiar voice coming through the speakers, could make out Tsubasa’s shadow against the back curtains as the singer danced across the stage. Her words filled the mansion, calling out to an enraptured audience.

> “ _ Dancing, dancing! Non-stop my dancing _
> 
> _ Dancing, dancing! Non-stop my dancing _
> 
> _ Dancing, dancing! Non-stop my dancing _
> 
> _ Dancing, dancing! Let me do! _ ”

As the performance went on, however, You had already disappeared from her place behind the stage, heading back in the direction she had come until she reached the intersection in the hallway where she’d parted ways with Yoshiko. As she got there she waited ten seconds, then twenty, but still nothing was happening. Something was wrong.

“Yoshiko,” she said, pressing down the button on her walkie-talkie once again. “What’s taking so long? Are you alright down there?”

“This is more complicated than I thought it would be!” Yoshiko’s voice came back, almost hissing the words over the staticy connection. You groaned when she heard that, slumping her shoulders down for a moment before lifting her walkie-talkie again.

“Stay there. I’m coming to you.” You looked down the hall in the direction Yoshiko had run off after she said that, eyes following along the trail of taped down wires and cables. Patting her side to feel the handgun tucked away underneath her shirt, just in case, she started to run in that direction. Apparently she had to do everything around here.

The hallway lead around a corner, and then to a staircase that disappeared down into the basement of the mansion, where all the wires led. Taking the stairs two at a time You started to rush down them, feet thudding heavily with each step until they reached the concrete floor of the basement. And, as soon as she landed there, You looked up to see Yoshiko at the far end of the room, standing in front of a large circuit breaker panel.

“Yoshiko!” she called out. “What the hell’s taking so long down here?”

“There’s too many switches!!” Yoshiko shouted back. “I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do with them!”

“Then why did you say you would handle this?? Just flip some until something happens!”

“I’m trying!” Yoshiko insisted.

“If that doesn’t work just use this!” As You said that Yoshiko looked back at her, greeted by the sight of You holding out a large, heavy looking wrench she had just pilfered from a stray toolbox. Yoshiko looked at it for a second, and then her face lit up as she ran forward to take it, quickly scurrying back to the breaker panel once again. She lifted the wrench up over her head, then paused, letting out a low, ominous chuckle.

“Now, my little demons,” she hummed to herself. “I apologize for that little delay, but the main event is about to begin. Prepare yourselves to descend with Yohane…” she said. “Into darkness.” And then she swung the wrench down.

Back in the foyer Tsubasa’s performance continued on, and as the end of the song gradually came closer and closer, Dia found her fingers tapping against the bannister in nervous anticipation. What was taking so long? Why hadn’t anything happened yet? Had there been a hitch in their plan? Had Yoshiko gotten caught? Did they need to get out of here? Those thoughts were all bouncing around in her head, keeping her tense and anxious until, all at once, everything stopped.

Tsubasa’s vocals cut out. The thudding electronic backing came to a halt. And, most noticeably, the lights went dark as well. Not just the strobes and spotlights that had been highlighting the stage, but the dimmer lights around the edges of the foyer, and the lights that had been keeping other rooms in the mansion illuminated during the performance as well. Everything in the mansion had gone dark. A shocked gasped ran out through the crowd, followed by nervous murmurs as people tried to figure out what had just happened, but Dia had no time for that.

“Let’s go,” she said, already pushing off from the railing and starting to barrel down the stairs, trusting her memory more than her eyesight to bring her in the proper direction.

“Right behind you, boss!” she heard Mari call out from behind her, and she could hear her partner’s footsteps running down the stairs in time with her own. In just a few seconds Dia had reached the bottom level, at which point she sprinted forward with arms outstretched until her hands hit the edges of the case You had left for them just a few minutes earlier. Her fingers quickly found the latches and flicked them back, pulling the case open just in time to hear more voices cutting through the continued murmuring of the crowd.

“Onee-chan! We’re here!”

“Good,” Dia replied, and her eyes were now starting to adjust to the darkness just enough to make out the figures of Hanamaru, Chika, and her own younger sister standing beside her. Dia pushed her hands down into the case, reaching around at the bottom until she felt a smooth, metallic sensation under her palms. Guns. “Here,” she said, pulling her hands back and shoving one of the guns over towards Mari.

“Thank you kindly,” Mari replied, reaching out to take it.

“And the rest of you know what you’re doing?” Dia then asked, glancing back at the others.

“Yeah!” Chika repleid. “You can count on us!”

“Good. Then let’s move.”

Up on the stage Tsubasa was still standing alone, blinded by the darkness even more than everyone else since the lights had been shining down on her just a moment before. She was hardly able to see in the blackness, though she could hear the whispering of the crowd out in front of her, followed a moment later by footsteps thunking onto the stage alongside her, and then voices.

“Kira-san,” she heard a man say, and from the footsteps she could guess there were two of them present. “We’re not sure what’s happening, but we’re going to bring you off stage until it’s sorted out.”

“Right. That’s probably for the best,” Tsubasa agreed, though internally she was waiting impatiently for Aqours’ next step.

“If you’ll just come this way with us,” the security guard started to say, though he was cut off mid-sentence by another, far more high-pitched voice.

“Sorry, boys, but she won’t be going anywhere with you,” Mari Ohara sang out, and both the guards froze as they felt cold metal being pressed to the backs of their heads. Tusbasa glanced sideways, and her vision was starting to adjust just enough for her to be able to make out the forms of Mari and Dia there on stage with her.

“Get down on the ground, both of you,” Dia commanded. “We’re taking Kira with us.”

“Wh-What the hell??” one of the guards blurted out. “What do you think you’re doing??” But Tsubasa was quick to intervene, knowing time was of the essence.

“They have guns,” she stated, dryly and matter-of-factly. “Listen to their demands. I don’t need anyone getting shot because of me.”

“B-But, Kira-san-” one of the guards protested, only for her to interrupt again.

“Do it.” A moment of hesitation followed that, but after a second or two had passed the guards reluctantly started to obey Dia’s orders, cautiously raising their hands into the air as they got down on their knees on the stage.

“Good,” Mari hummed, before grabbing Tsubasa by the arm. “Now, we have places to be, so… Ciao!” And with that she and Dia were breaking off into a run towards the edge of the stage again, Mari pulling Tsubasa along with them. Tsubasa stumbled at first, caught off guard by the sudden tugging, but she soon managed to fall in line along with Dia and Mari, running with them as they jumped off stage and hit the floor.

“You don’t have to be so rough with me, you know,” Tsubasa said, arm still locked into Mari’s grip.

“Sorry, darling,” Mari replied. “But we have to make it look convincing, you know?”

“Both of you stay quiet and keep focused,” Dia cut in. “We’ve got a long ways to go before we’re out of the woods.” As she spoke the trio ran around the edge of the room, producing louder gasps and murmurs from the people close enough to see someone sprinting along near them, though in the darkness it still seemed as if nobody had pieced together exactly what was going on, and that confusion was working to their advantage. They opted not to go through the backstage entrance You had come through earlier, knowing it was going to be one of the more heavily guarded areas of the mansion. Right now, avoiding security for as long as possible was their primary concern.

They managed to reach the doorway into one of the drawing rooms adjacent to the foyer without incident, though now that they were entering a smaller area Dia was well aware that the crowd would be more tightly packed. She had committed the entire floor plan of the mansion to memory during their planning stages, and she must have had a dozen different escape routes plotted out depending on how things went. Still, the crowds were going to be an issue.

“Excuse us! Coming through!” Mari called out, bowling through other guests as she pulled Tsubasa along with her. This earned her some yells and angry shouts, but did little to impede her progress. The three of them bolted across the room with Dia at the helm, keeping the map of the building in her mind’s eye as she lead them across the drawing room and towards the dining room that she knew was on the other side. But then, just as they had almost reached the doorway, the power came back on.

The light was blinding at first, after Dia’s eyes had gotten so used to the dark. She found herself wincing and looking down for a moment, vision completely washed out from the sudden change. As she finally managed to open her eyes back up enough to look around and to lift her head again, she was going through the next steps of their plan. She had been prepared for this, knowing the even would have a backup generator they would quickly be able to bring online in case something went wrong.

What she wasn’t prepared for was finding herself nearly face to face with a security guard.

“Hey, there they are! Stop them!” A collective gasp came from the crowd when they all looked over to see Tsubasa Kira standing among them, flanked by two women each carrying a gun. For a moment Dia was petrified, eyes locked with the guard’s, blood running cold. But then, just on cue, she heard a loud pop and a hissing sound, followed by another voice coming from the back of the room as well.

“What the hell??” someone shouted, and Dia twisted her neck around to see Chika standing back by the entrance to the drawing room. Far more noticeable than Chika herself, though, was the enormous plume of orange smoke billowing up from underneath the table just a few feet from where she was standing. And then another pop, and another, and more hissing, and suddenly the smoke was rising up from three or four different locations all at once, starting to fill the entire room in a matter of seconds. The same was true across the rest of ground floor of the mansion as well; from the drawing room where they were currently gathered, to the central foyer where Ruby shrieked and pointed towards a rising cloud of pink smoke, to the long open hall that Hanamaru was running down as a cloud of yellow smoke almost seemed to chase her, the entire mansion was now being covered in this haze. And the chaos it caused was almost instant.

When the people looked over to see Tsubasa and Mari and Dia they had been tense, but now they were immediately whipping themselves into a panic. All hell broke loose as everyone started to shout and run for the nearest exit simultaneously, shoving and pushing over each other in the process, knocking over chairs and cramming through narrow doorways while they tried to make their escape. It was like the difference between standing in a pool of stagnant water and being bowled over in a roaring rapid, and within seconds there were at least five different people between Dia and the security guard she had been staring down. Just as she had planned.

Causing a chaos like this one in a casino or a museum would have been easy: just pull the fire alarm and all hell would break loose in seconds. Since the mansion was technically a private residence, however, there were no fire alarms to be found, and Aqours had needed to drum up a more creative approach. The smoke bombs had been smuggled in at the bottom of the same crate that had held Dia and Mari’s guns, and really, there wasn’t much of a reason for people to be panicking as badly as they were. While it probably wasn’t a good idea to breathe in the smoke for an extended period of time, it was for the most part harmless, the same sort of special effect that was commonly used for artsy, colorful photoshoots. But Aqours was counting on the rest of the audience not knowing that, and it seemed that had been a safe bet.

Between the chaotic throng of people storming their way towards the exits and the orange haze that was growing thicker and thicker with each passing second, Dia and Mari found themselves in the perfect situation to start slipping deeper into the mansion, hopefully managing to shake any more security guards who were tailing them in the process. “This way,” Dia instructed, waving Mari and Tsubasa to follow her as she bolted towards the door into the dining room. Chika, meanwhile was evacuating in the opposite direction, letting herself get sucked up in the crowd as it dragged her towards the foyer.

The scene out there was just as chaotic as it had been in the drawing room, with people from both sides of the mansion converging on that central point and storming an entryway that wasn’t anywhere close to large enough for the crowd trying to push through it. The security checkpoint by the front entrance was completely overrun now, and though the guards were still trying to do their best to manage the crowd and keep it organized, they were failing miserably at that job. People were pushing and stumbling their way through the entrance and out onto the front drive, then further onto the lawn, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the smoke as they could.

In the middle of all the chaos Chika tried to keep an eye out towards the crowd around her, scanning the panicked faces of the stampeding mob, and in doing so she eventually found the ones she was looking for. “Ruby-chan! Maru-chan!” she shouted, raising an arm up and waving it frantically to try to get her comrades’ attention. The other two looked over at her from across the mass of people that still separated them, and Chika began the arduous task of trying to push her way through the horde to get over towards her two friends. Eventually she managed to break through the chaos, stumbling forward and causing Ruby to put a hand up to help catch her.

“Seems like this went pretty well, huh?” Chika asked, gesturing towards the smoke and the panicking crowd around them.

“Mhmm!” Ruby replied, nodding enthusiastically. “Just like onee-chan said it would!”

“We should probably get out of here though, zura…” Hanamaru added on.

“Right!” Chika agreed. “The others are gonna be waiting for us! Let’s go!” And, with that, the three of them pushed their way forward into the swarm of people still rushing the entrance, blending in seamlessly as they began to make their escape.

Dia, Mari, and Tsubasa, meanwhile, were finally managing to reach the edge of the crowd they had been working against, pushing through into rooms of the mansion that were starting to empty out, and putting enough distance between themselves and the smoke’s origin point that it hadn’t reached to where they were. Mari had never let go of Tsubasa’s arm all the while, just to keep up appearances for anyone who happened to take notice of them.

“I have to say, you ladies certainly know how to cause a scene,” Tsubasa commented, the three of them breaking out of yet another living room and entering into a wide hallway.

“We learn from the best,” Mari replied. “Who better to teach us about pageantry and showmanship than you, Kira-san?”

“You flatter me.”

“Stay focused,” Dia insisted, looking up and down the hallway. There was a staircase at one end, leading up to the higher levels of the mansion, and a set of large doors at the other end, which Dia pointed to. “If we head out this way it should put us close to the-” Just as she was saying that, however, their luck soured yet again. Apparently their attempts to lose the security guards in the smoke and the chaos hadn’t been quite as successful as Dia had hoped, because the doors were swinging open and four more guards were bursting into the hallway through it.

“There they are!” one of them shouted. “Get them!”

“Shit,” Dia muttered, before looking back over her shoulder at the staircase behind them. It was regrettable, since moving up to the second floor meant they would have to find a way back down later, but it didn’t seem like they had any other option at the moment, and there really wasn’t any time to think it through either. “This way!” she decided, already starting to book it down the hall. Mari, however, seemed to have other ideas.

“Now hold on just a moment, Dia,” she hummed. “Why are we in such a hurry? We have the upper hand here.” Dia hadn’t been prepared for Mari to disagree with her in a critical moment like this one, and she had no clue what the hell her partner was thinking, saying something like that right now. But, as she looked towards Mari, she got her answer: Dia glanced over just in time to see the hand that had been holding onto Tsubasa let go, only for Mari to wrap her entire arm around Tsubasa’s neck, pulling the pop star up against her own body and pressing a gun to her head.

Dia froze in place when she saw that. The security guards did as well- they had already been halfway down the hall towards Tsubasa and her captors by that point, but the moment the gun was raised they all froze where they were, going rigid on the spot, staring down the hall towards Mari with tense uncertainty. Tsubasa looked genuinely shocked, and Dia had a feeling it wasn’t acting. Whatever Mari was doing right now it wasn’t anything they had discussed as a group, and Tsubasa almost certainly wasn’t expecting to find herself with a gun pressed to her temple like this.

“What the hell are you doing??” Dia hissed, though Mari simply smiled to herself, still staring back at the frozen security guards.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she replied. “I’m taking a hostage.” From there she projected her voice out down the hall, clearly speaking to the guards rather than to Dia now. “If you gentleman are supposed to be protecting Kira-san, I’d recommend stepping aside and letting us through,” she said. “My partner and I would really like to get to that door behind you, and it would be a shame if anyone tried to get in our way.”

“Now- Just calm down for a second,” one of the guards tried to argue. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“And neither do we,” Mari replied. “So chop chop! Let’s go!”

“You wouldn’t shoot the person you’re trying to kidnap,” another guard argued, and Mari’s eyes narrowed as the man tried to call her bluff.

“Do you think?” she asked. “It’s definitely not my preferred option, but if it comes to getting boxed into a corner and caught or cutting my losses and getting out of here I think the choice is clear.”

“Mari!” Dia hissed again. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” But Mari simply ignored her, turning her attention to the next guard to speak.

“You won’t do it,” he insisted. “If you shoot her you lose all your leverage. Just put the guns down and let’s be rational about this.”

“I’m oh so tired of men telling women what we are and aren’t capable of,” Mari sighed. “Maybe you just need to see for yourself.”

“Mari!” Dia blurted out. “What the hell are you-” But she didn’t even get to finish the thought before Mari pulled the trigger.


	7. August 1st, 8:12 pm

The sudden noise of the gunshot was absolutely ear-splitting, only made even louder than usual as it was amplified by the confined space. The sound echoed back and forth between the walls and left Dia’s ears ringing, and she found herself wincing and recoiling from the noise, screwing her eyes shut tightly on instinct. It was a moment later before a rush of adrenaline forced her to open them again, trying to make sense of what she was seeing in front of her. Mari was still standing there. The guards all seemed frozen in place. And Tsubasa… Tsubasa was down on the ground.

But she was moving.

As Dia looked at the writhing figure of Tsubasa Kira she could see the pop idol clutching her own foot, and as she looked closer she could begin to make out the redness of blood covering her fingers. Looking back at Mari, taking note of the lowered position of her gun, Dia could start to piece together what had happened: in that last moment before pulling the trigger, Mari must have aimed down. The bullet had still gone into Tsubasa, but at least it was in her foot rather than through her head. It was a small comfort, but it didn’t do much to quell Dia’s shaking hands, the dryness in her mouth, the nausea in the pit of her stomach. For as many times as she had run around brandishing a gun for show, she had never actually seen anyone get shot before.

“W-What- What the fuck is wrong with you, you crazy bitch??” one of the guards stammered out, voice cutting through the ringing in Dia’s ears. And, as she started to adjust to the sounds of the room again, she also started to hear the low, agonized groaning of Tsubasa as she bled out on the floor.

“Hmm? Nothing’s wrong with me,” Mari replied. “You, however, were very wrong when you assumed I wouldn’t do this. And you should be careful,” she added on, crouching down next to a writhing Tsubasa to press the gun to her head again. “There’s still five more in the chamber. So, are we done here?”

“You’re- You’re insane!” another one of the guards shouted.

“Maybe so,” Mari replied. “Which makes me rather unpredictable, no? So you really shouldn’t keep wasting my time.” The guards looked back and forth at each other for another moment as Mari said that, but it quickly became clear they knew better than to try to call her bluff a second time. Cautiously, all of them started to step back, moving away from the door they had been blocking.

“You’re not gonna get away with this,” one of them warned, simply prompting Mari to roll her eyes.

“As we’ve already seen, you’re not doing so great with these predictions,” she said, before looking back over her shoulder towards Dia. “Dear, come help me carry her, won’t you?” For a moment Dia was still rooted in place from her shock, and she was taken aback by Mari’s continued irreverence even when she had just _shot someone_. But whatever yelling and shouting she needed to do, she also at least had the clarity to realize this was neither the time nor the place for it. Nodding, she forced herself to run forward, crouching down next to their injured hostage.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“F-Fucking wonderful,” Tsubasa hissed back through gritted teeth, still clutching her foot. Now that she was up closer Dia could see just how badly it was bleeding, but she tried her hardest not to focus on that. Even if Tsubasa seemed shaken, the fact that she was able to be sarcastic at a time like this was probably a good thing. Probably.

“We’re getting you out of here. Let’s go,” Dia said, reaching out to start lifting Tsubasa up, looping one of the idol’s arms around her own shoulders. Mari did the same from the other side, and together they were able to get Tsubasa into an upright position, although they were still supporting nearly the entirety of her weight. She was only able to stand on one foot, for obvious reasons, and even then she was barely actually holding herself up on it.

“Thanks for your patience, boys,” Mari said, flashing a wink as she started carrying the strained Tsubasa towards the door alongside Dia. “We’ll be out of your hair now.” The guards all stood in place as they watched the three women move past, though while this moment may have been quiet Dia knew it wasn’t going to last long. There were sure to be more obstacles waiting for them before they were completely home free. She kept her eyes dead ahead as they moved down the hall, all too aware of the men staring at them as they went, of Tsubasa’s labored breathing beside her, of just how heavy the singer felt as practical dead weight against her shoulders. She moved as quickly as she could down the hall, through the doorway into a small entrance area on the side of the house, and it was only once Mari kicked the large door shut behind them that Dia finally whipped her head around to glare at her partner.

“What the hell were you thinking back there??” she seethed. “You just _shot_ Kira-san! Are you completely out of your mind?? Are you feeling okay?” she then asked, turning her attention to Tsubasa herself. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m not sure how much blood I’ve lost by this point,” Tsubasa replied, still speaking in a strained tone of voice between shallow breaths, “but I have a feeling it’s more than they’d recommend. Let’s try to hurry, shall we?”

“Agreed. This is no time for chit-chat, Dia,” Mari hummed. “Do try to stay focused, alright?” Dia felt her blood positively boil at that remark, though before she had the chance to say anything else Mari was suddenly walking forward and pulling Tsubasa with her which, in turn, pulled Dia as well. There was another set of doors just in front of them, and Mari walked towards it, grabbing the handle and tossing it open to let a wave of cool night air wash over them.

The door lead out onto the side lawn of the mansion, and they were now in a part of the building that wasn’t supposed to be used for the party, and as a result didn’t seem to have much attention focused on it. A little ways off in the distance Dia could hear the continued shouting and commotion that she had to assume was the aftermath of the smoke bomb incident, though they couldn’t see the crowds from where they were standing. All the could see was a large grassy expanse stretching out in front of them, and a tall wall of nearly identical, tightly packed juniper trees a couple dozen meters away. And then, off in the distance, she heard one of the absolute last things she wanted to hear: police sirens, slowly getting closer.

“Dammit,” Dia muttered. “Already?”

“See?” Mari replied. “Aren’t you glad we didn’t waste any more time in there? Hold on tight, Kira-san. Things are about to get a little hectic.”

“ _About_ to?” Kira muttered, but Mari was already looking towards Dia.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Right,” Dia answered. “Let’s go.” And with that, the two of them started to break out into a sprint across the lawn, running towards the tree wall as fast as they were able- which, as it turned out, wasn’t nearly as fast as they would have been able to run had it not been for the extra burden. Still, with the sound of sirens progressively growing louder and closer they knew they didn’t have a second to waste, and so they ran to the point where they were practically just dragging a limp Tsubasa along with them, abandoning the notion that she would in any way be able to make herself run. They headed straight towards the wall that marked the edge of the lawn, running right up to it before digging their heels into the grass and coming to a stop.

“Now brace yourself, Kira-san,” Mari said. “This might be a little unpleasant.”

“Oh, will it?” Tsubasa bit back. “A shame. I had been having such a wonderful time up until now.”

“You go first,” Dia instructed, and Mari nodded.

“Let’s go!” she sang out, before starting to push her way forward through the trees with Tsubasa still hanging off her. The gaps between the trees were just large enough that she was able to force her way through, though it hardly looked like a pleasant experience, with the branches coming in so tightly from either side that they practically seemed to engulf Mari and Tsubasa. In an instant they were out of sight, disappearing into the greenery of the wall, and Dia took a deep breath as she prepared to go after them.

As it turned out, her assumption was correct: the moment she started to push through Dia felt the needley juniper leaves assailing her from all directions, scratching up her bare arms and shoulders, hitting her in the face and practically blinding her. The branches were dense enough that it was a struggle just to force her way through, and her dress was getting snagged on every surface it possibly could. The ground underfoot was uneven as well, which only made the process even harder than it otherwise would have been. Eventually, though, after entirely too much struggle, the increasingly loud police sirens adding extra pressure the entire time, Dia managed to break through to the other side. She went stumbling forward, just barely catching her footing and avoiding collapsing onto the dirt ground in front of her, before she heard familiar voices speaking to her.

“You all look like shit. What the hell happened in there?”

“Is that- Is that _blood?_ ” Lifting her head Dia found herself face to face with a car: a vibrant orange Dodge Viper, bright red tail lights lit up in the darkness, engine quietly humming away while it idled. And, sitting there in the front seats, windows rolled down on the driver’s side, were Kanan and Riko.

The area they found themselves in now was the valet lot where cars of the guests had been taken to be stored during the party, and aside from Kanan’s Viper there were easily dozens, probably hundreds of other expensive cars stretching out across the dirt. Kanan and Riko were both wearing button-up shirts and bowties as they sat there, red vests layered on top, Kanan sitting behind the wheel with her sleeves up past her elbows. Just as You and Yoshiko had bluffed their way into the production crew with Hanamaru’s forged documents and a convincing bit of acting, Kanan and Riko had done the same with the valet company providing service for the party. Now, that was paying off.

“I’ll give you the full story later,” Mari replied, moving forward with Tsubasa still leaning against her to open the door to the back seats of the car. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’re a little pressed for time now.”

“Get us out of here as fast as you can,” Dia said, running up behind Mari as her partner helped load Tsubasa into vehicle.

“Don’t get blood on the seats!” Kanan protested.

“Of course,” Tsubasa muttered back. “How inconsiderate of me.” As soon as they were all in Dia slammed the door shut and, after once glance in the mirror to make sure they had everyone, Kanan grabbed hold of the gear shift.

“Make sure you’ve got a good grip on her back there,” she warned. “Shit's gonna get wild.” And, with that, Kanan threw the car into drive and slammed her foot down against the gas.

The engine roared to life as the car sped out of the dirt parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust underneath the back tires as it went. The exit to the lot was only a short distance away, but from there the path went around a sharp turn, leading up to the front entrance of the mansion. The entire car lurched to the side as Kanan tore down the drive, throwing Riko and Mari up against the wall in the process.

“Be careful!” Dia shouted up front. “We don’t need Kira-san getting even more injured back here!” Speaking of which… Dia’s eyes looked towards Tsubasa once again, and down towards her foot, noticing the bleeding was still continuing. She was hardly a medical expert, but somehow that didn’t seem like a good thing. “Riko!” she barked. “Give me your vest!”

“Huh?” Riko asked, looking back over her shoulder before processing what Dia was doing. “Right,” she then said, quickly undoing the buttons and sliding the garment off her arms, throwing it to Dia.

“Kira-san, can you lift your leg up?” Dia asked.

“If you’re about to make this hurt even more than it already does I’m going to be quite cross with you,” Tsubasa replied. Still, she did as she was asked, lifting her leg up with only a bit of strain and resting it on the seat next to Dia. She was wearing a tall boot that came up just below her knee, though the thin faux-leather had done little to stop a bullet. It seemed better to get it out of the way, though, so Dia grabbed hold of the boot near the top, starting the delicate process of trying to remove it without causing Tsubasa too much pain. Judging from the way Tsubasa winced as soon as Dia pulled the slightest bit it already seemed like that wasn’t going well, and it only got worse when another sharp swerve had Dia thrown off to the side.

“Can you be careful up there?” Dia shouted out.

“Sorry, but that’s not really an option,” Kanan called back. “Look!” As she spoke she pointed ahead through the windshield, and leaning forward from the back seat Dia could see what she was pointing towards: first of all, there was still an enormous crowd of people gathered out in front of the mansion, covering the front lawn after the chaotic evacuation the others had caused. More pressingly, though, the police had arrived.

There were already six or seven cars gathered on the driveway leading up to the mansion, flashing blue lights drowning out the gentler glow from inside the building. Some of the officers had already gotten out and were attempting to deal with the crowd, while others were cautiously approaching the front entrance. At the sound of the car that was suddenly speeding down the path towards them, however, every head seemed to turn in their direction. Several of the officers were shouting and gesturing towards Kanan, waving their arms as if that was going to stop her.

“Do you need me to-” Riko started to ask, but Kanan quickly interrupted her.

“No,” she replied. “I’ve got this. Hold on tight.” Kanan punctuated her words by pushing her foot down on the gas as far as it would go, forcing the car all the way up to the limits of its speed, causing them to barrel down on the wall of cop cars surrounding the gate back towards the main roads even faster.

“Kanan!” Dia shouted. “You’ll crash!”

“Unlikely!” Kanan shouted back. “I’m not you!”

“ _Thread the needle_ , Kanan!” Mari sang. And as Kanan and her entire car full of accomplices came hurtling down on the police cars, she did exactly that: the entire viper slid perfectly through a gap between two cruisers that, Riko would have sworn, never would have been large enough to fit them. If there had been a fly between the Viper and either of the police cars it surely would have been crushed to death. But, by some miracle, they made it through unscathed, shooting out onto the winding path that lead down towards the main roads. Not that they were in the clear yet.

Perhaps it was out of anticipation of an event precisely like this one, or perhaps it was sheer coincidence and good luck. Either way, several of the police cars that were parked near the gate already seemed ready to give pursuit. As Kanan went barreling past them the wail of sirens immediately filled the air, and two of the cars rocketed off the mansion’s grounds behind them, starting to give chase.

“Just stay as still as you can,” Dia said, finally getting Tsubasa’s boot all the way off and starting to wrap Riko’s discarded vest around the bullet wound. “I’m going to put pressure on it. It might hurt, but this is for the best.”

“At least you have the decency to _warn_ me first,” Tsubasa muttered, shooting a sideways glance at Mari as Dia tended to her. Mari, meanwhile, seemed entirely unapologetic.

“You knew the risks when you gave us this job, Kira-san,” she teased.

“Damn, these guys are fast,” Kanan murmured from the front, glancing in her rear view mirror at the police cars that were steadily gaining distance on them. Fortunately, they had planned for this. “Got another turn coming up, get ready!” With that minimal warning Kanan slammed on the brake and spun the wheel sharply, causing the car to drift around the corner, momentarily disappearing from view behind the trees that lined the edges of the road. The police cars were close behind, screeching their way around the same corner- and then screeching to a stop when they saw what was on the other side.

An intersection sat ahead of them, the road branching out in three different directions. At the far end of the intersection, directly ahead, there sat an orange Dodge Viper, the exact car they had just been chasing after. Then, on the path to the left, there sat another car: an orange Dodge Viper. And finally on the path to the right, there sat yet another orange Dodge Viper.

Three identical cars were waiting there, each one poised at a different exit to the intersection, each one with their tail lights lit up, each one with their engine quietly humming. For a moment or two a tense stillness permeated the atmosphere as the police cars sat there, stunned and disoriented by this turn of events, unsure of how to proceed. And then, all at once, all three cars started to rev up, tires screeching against the pavement before, in perfect unison, they all shot off in different directions.

“W-What the hell??” one of the police officers shouted into his radio. “Which one do we follow??”

“Just pick one!” the other officer shouted back. “I’m going left!” With that one of the police cars tore off in that direction to chase after the Viper that had gone that way and, in a spur of the moment decision, the other police car broke right, leaving the Viper in the middle to speed off down the road unpursued. Still, it maintained its speed as it tore away from the scene of the crime, and from behind the wheel Leah Kazuno glanced up into her mirror, watching the other cars grow farther and farther away.

“Looks like we’re the lucky ones,” she said. “I’ll get us farther away before I stop though.”

“Awww,” Ruby sighed from the seat beside her. “I was sort of hoping we would get to be in a car chase.”

“Really?” Leah asked. “Why would you want that?”

“Because it would be exciting!” Chika called out from the back seat, where she was sitting alongside Hanamaru. “Those guys get to have all the fun while we’re stuck here doing nothing! It’s so unfair!!”

“Hey… How does this thing work, zura?” Hanamaru murmured, and Chika looked over to see her fumbling with a walkie talkie, poking at various bits of the case in an attempt to get it to do something.

“Here, let me,” Chika said, reaching out to take the device away from her. She pressed down the button, speaking into it just a bit more loudly than was necessary. “We’re in the clear! Good luck you guys!”

“Ganbaruby!” Ruby called out from up front. Leah eased onto the brake after that, bringing the car down below the speed limit again so she wouldn’t draw further attention now that she had already shaken their pursuers.

“You know,” Leah sighed out, “I guess I do sorta wish we were the ones getting chased after too.”

“Really?” Ruby asked. “Why’s that?”

“Because… Then I wouldn’t have to sit here feeling so worried.” Leah felt an arm on her shoulder after she said that, and she glanced over out of the corner of her eye to see Ruby reaching out and smiling at her.

“There’s nothing for you to be worried about,” she promised. “Our sisters are the best! They know what they’re doing.”

“Yeah,” Leah replied, forcing herself to smile. “I really hope you’re right.”

Elsewhere, further down another road, Sarah Kazuno was also keeping her eyes to her rear view mirror, watching the police car that was still tailing close behind her.

“I really can’t lose this dick, huh?” she grumbled.

“Perhaps some assistance is needed,” a sinister voice came from the back seat. “Call upon the dark ones, and allow their strength to course through you as you- Oww!” Yoshiko whined, interrupted by a dull thwacking noise as You swatted the back of her head.

“Don’t distract Sarah-san while she’s driving,” she scolded.

“She’s right though,” Sarah chimed in, giving Yoshiko a level of vindication You really didn’t need. “I’m never gonna shake him at this rate.” Sarah had been driving recklessly, pushing the car to the limits of its speed and cutting turns onto side roads as sharply as she could, but the police car had stayed right behind all the while, never losing any distance. If she was going to break away, she was going to need to get a little more creative. She glanced down at the emergency brake next to her, then back up at the road. “You ladies are buckled in back there, right?”

“Roger!” You called back.

“Good,” Sarah said, before grabbing her walkie talkie off her dashboard and pressing down on the button. “Hey Kanan-san. Sorry about this.”

“What??” Kanan’s voice came back through, crackly and distorted over the poor connection. “What are you doing?? You’d better not dent up my baby!” By that point Sarah had already thrown the walkie talkie over into the seat beside her, though, and she was watching the police car in her mirror once again. She deliberately eased up on the gas a bit, slowing her car and letting her pursuer start to gain distance. She let the cop get closer, and closer, waiting for just the right opportunity until finally, right as the car was about to ram into her, she yanked back on the emergency brake. She slammed down on the brake pedal and threw the wheel to the side as sharply as she could as well, causing the entire car to lurch violently as it was twisted around its front axle, back swinging out behind it. Tires screeched against the pavement while the brake pads ground against the wheel in a way Sarah was sure couldn’t be great for the car, but at least it still seemed to be functional. And, as Sarah watched the police car go flying past her, it appeared her stunt had worked.

The police car slammed on its own brakes the moment Sarah did the same, and she watched as its lights lit up red and it started to come skidding to a halt. It was in no way prepared to mimic the maneuver Sarah had just pulled off, though; it easily went sliding another thirty feet past where Sarah had stopped, and even once it did manage to brake completely, it was still facing in the wrong direction. From her mirror Sarah could see the car beginning to haphazardly try to turn itself around on the narrow road, but by then she was already releasing the brakes and flooring the gas, causing her own car to lurch forward in the same direction they had just come from.

“So long, sucker,” Sarah said, grinning quite triumphantly as she watched the police car get farther and farther away behind them as it continued to struggle with what was quickly turning into a ten point turn.

“Fancy moves there!” You said. “You’re almost as good as Kanan-san!”

“Almost?” Sarah repeated. “I think I should be offended by that.” Speaking of which, as the car tore down the road now free of pursuit Sarah reached into the seat next to her, picking up the walkie talkie to speak into it again. “This is Sarah,” she said. “We’re all clear over here.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Leah’s voice came through, followed by Kanan’s a moment later.

“What did you do??” she insisted. “You didn’t wreck my car, did you?”

“Relax,” Sarah assured her. “Everything’s fine. Tires might be a little worn down now, but other than that it’s spotless.”

“Good,” Kanan insisted. “If you’d trashed it I would never forgive you.” After saying that Kanan tossed her own walkie talkie back onto the top of her dashboard, then glanced into her rearview mirror, able to see Dia and Mari and Tsubasa and, further behind that, the remaining police car that was still chasing after them. “How’re you holding up back there?” she asked.

“Believe it or not, I’ve been better,” Tsubasa replied.

“We’ve got the bleeding mostly halted,” added Dia, who was still holding the makeshift bandaging down around Tsubasa’s foot. “Still, the sooner we can get her real medical care the better.”

“Oh, are we in a hurry?” Kanan bit back. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. Riko,” she added on, glancing at the woman in the seat beside her. “I don’t think I’ll lose him on my own. You’re up.”

“Right,” Riko agreed, nodding and leaning forward to slide her hand under the glove compartment until she found the latch. As it popped open, though, rather than paperwork or glasses or assorted cables, there was only one item inside: an Agram 2000 submachinie gun.

“Be careful with that thing, okay?” Mari said. “We don’t need any bullets finding their way back here.”

“Right,” Tsubasa agreed. “It would be a shame if one of us were to get shot.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Riko muttered, pulling the gun out from the compartment and rolling down the window beside her. The moment it was open the rush of air started to fill the car and fly past her ears, reminding her just how fast they were going. Surely, that was only going to make this even more difficult.

With gun in hand Riko leaned out through the window and twisted at the waist, trying to take aim on the police car that was still chasing close behind. The road was already twisty and uneven, and when Kanan was trying to lose their pursuer she wasn’t exactly driving straight either. Riko found herself getting whipped back and forth so much that it was hard to line up a shot, but after taking a few seconds to steady her aim she pulled down on the trigger and let a spray of bullets loose. Unfortunately they seemed to miss their mark, the shots scattering against the pavement or simply disappearing off into the night. Wincing, Riko looked back inside, raising her voice up to be heard over the wind.

“Kanan!” she shouted. “Can you keep the car any more steady?”

“I can do my best but you’re asking a lot right now!” Kanan shouted back.

“Just do what you can!”

“I’ll try!” After Kanan shouted that Riko felt the car pull to the side a little bit, and she quickly realized Kanan was centering it on the road, driving right down the middle with the yellow line practically cutting them in half. The benefits of this were twofold: first, it meant they didn’t have to swerve as aggressively every time there was even the slightest curve or bend at the edge of the street. And, secondly, it brought Riko more in line with the car behind them, allowing her a more unobstructed shot.

“Alright,” Riko murmured to herself, lining up the barrel of the gun once again. “Let’s do this. No pressure.” And, once she was confident in her aim, she pulled the trigger down again, letting another barrage of bullets fly loose. The first couple missed their mark the same as the last, hitting the road or the surrounding trees and leaving the police car unscathed. But, finally, a few seemed to find what they were aiming for. Several bullets ripped into the wheel of the police car, and the effects were instantaneous. As the tire was torn open the car veered sharply to the side, screeching as it suddenly tried to brake before it spun out of control. The car ended up sliding off the road and ended up halfway on the grass, though Riko was only able to see that for a moment before it disappeared from view around another sharp bend in the road.

“Good shot Riko-chan!” Mari called out from the back seat.

“We’re in the clear now, right?” Kanan asked.

“Provided nobody else comes out of the woodwork, yes,” Dia answered. “Now we just have to worry about getting Kira-san to the safehouse without getting noticed again.”

“That medical attention would be nice as well,” Tsubasa added on. “No hurry, of course. Just whenever it’s convenient for you.”

“Ayase-san said that she knows several trustworthy doctors,” Dia said. “Mari, see if you can call her up.”

“Aye aye, captain Dia,” Mari replied, pulling up her phone to call their associate. Even after the police were gone and dealt with the scene in the back of the car was still a hectic one. Tsubasa was still injured, Dia was still trying to tend to her, Riko was still holding onto her gun just in case , Mari was still trying to get in touch with a criminal kingpin. But as the car drove off into the night, disappearing back into the same anonymity they had come from, it seemed that they could consider this, even despite all the twists and turns and hiccups along the way, to be another successful job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire heist scene changed quite a bit from my first concept to the final draft. Originally Mari, Dia, and Tsubasa were going to run upstairs to escape the security guards and then jump off a balcony into a pool, and somehow that turned into Mari shooting hostages. The original draft of this chapter also contained the sentence "Danger makes Ruby horny," which was, notably, spoken by Ruby herself, referring to herself in the third person. Tragically, this had to be removed from the final version.


	8. August 4th, 5:53 am

The air was brisk. The sun rising up over the ocean promised to warm the day soon enough, but for the time being the chill wind blowing in from over the water caused Dia to pull her jacket around herself a bit more tightly, trying to shield herself from the bite.

“Diaaaaaaaa,” Mari groaned from beside her, slumping down against Dia, head landing on her shoulder. “When will they be here?”’

“Soon,” Dia replied. She had always been a morning person, and as a result this time of day agreed with her. The same couldn’t be said for Mari.

The nine members of their group were all gathered together, around three cars and Yoshiko’s bike, standing on the long concrete platform that circled around the water’s edge at one of the more isolated ports near the city. Mari’s sentiment seemed to be a common one: Ruby and Hanamaru looked like they had practically fallen asleep against each other, and Chika had been complaining about how tired she was practically the entire time they had been there. Times like these made Dia feel like she was the only adult in their whole damn group.

The aftermath of Tsubasa’s kidnapping had gone exactly as they had anticipated: it had only take the news and the police a few minutes to latch onto the fact that µ's had been present at the party, and the fact that several of their members had managed to peel off and disappear before the police had started rounding people up for questioning only made them look even more suspicious. The entire investigation had been focused around them but had, unsurprisingly, come up blank so far. And, all the while, Aqours had managed to slip under the radar without drawing any attention to themselves whatsoever. Even eyewitness reports that placed them at the scene didn’t seem to be able to effectively differentiate between one blonde woman speaking a foreign language and another.

Aqours had managed to get Tsubasa her much needed medical attention immediately after getting her away from the mansion as well. Maki Nishikino, it turned out, owned an entire hospital. And, after she had taking it over from her parents, she had helped Eli staff it with quite a few doctors who earned very high paychecks in exchange for their “no questions asked” policy towards treating whatever injuries Maki and her cohort came in with. Dia would have to remember that.

Now, after keeping Tsubasa hidden away at one of the µ's safehouses for a few days while the police and media attention died down, it was time for her to go through with the last phase of her escape, and disappear from Japan for good. The members of Aqours didn’t really  _ need _ to be there, but they had all wanted to come to see her off (even if some of them now seemed to be having seconds thoughts about doing that so early in the morning). They had been waiting for a few minutes already, but as Dia stood there with Mari half-asleep against her shoulder on one side and Kanan stretched out over the hood of the car on the other, she finally heard the sound of tires crunching their way across the gravel road up towards them.

Looking over, Dia saw another car approaching them: it was black, and relatively nondescript, though as it came closer she realized the windows were all tinted rather heavily, enough so that she had a hard time seeing inside. It was only once the car pulled up and came to a stop in front of them that the driver’s side door opened, and Dia could see Eli sitting behind the wheel, with Nozomi in the seat beside her.

“I see you’re all already here,” Eli said, shutting the car off and stepping out. “We didn’t keep you waiting too long, did we?”

“Yes you did!” Chika shouted from the background, though Dia chose to ignore her.

“Not at all,” she replied, before glancing at the still-concealed back seat of the car. “Did you bring Kira-san with you?”

“We did,” Eli replied, while Nozomi circled around from the other side of the vehicle.

“Kira-chaaaan,” she hummed, going over to open the idol’s (or, rather, ex-idol’s) door for her. “We’re here!” And as she opened it Dia did, in fact, find Tsubasa Kira sitting there in the back seat of the car, but she was shocked to see that the woman wasn’t alone. Sitting on either side of her were two other people Dia had never met before, but still happened to know quite well: Erena Todo and Anju Yuuki.

Dia’s heart nearly stopped when she realized she was looking at the former lineup of the idol group once known as A-RISE. Years ago the three women had all performed together, though Erena and Anju had stepped away from the music industry while A-RISE had still been a lesser-known group, one with a dedicated but small fanbase. It was only after she had launched her solo career that Tsubasa had rocketed her way up to being one of the nation’s most recognizable and most popular musical talents. Still, the fact that they hadn’t been on stage in ages didn’t stop Dia from being completely starstruck.

“Y-You- You’re- Y-You three-” she stammered out, while Kanan, now sitting up, rolled her eyes beside her.

“Great,” she groaned. “This again.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” replied Erena, who was sitting closest to the door. “I hope it’s alright that we came.”

“Tsubasa’s already told us a lot about you!” Anju added on.

“I wanted my two dearest friends here to see me off,” Tsubasa explained, and as Erena stepped out from the car Dia was able to get a better look at Tsubasa, taking notice of the cast around her foot and the crutches laid against the floor below her. After taking a bullet to the foot it was probably going to be a while before she was walking normally again. Tsubasa got out of the car after Erena, and Anju followed behind, grabbing Tsubasa’s crutches, as well as a suitcase, offering the former to her once they were all standing.

“I don’t think anyone was trying to follow us,” Eli said. “But we sent out decoy cars just in case. We should be alright.”

“But either way, we probably shouldn’t hang around here too long,” Nozomi added on. “Shall we?” she asked, gesturing down the length of the harbor. Dia finally managed to pull her eyes away from Tsubasa and her friends, following where Nozomi was pointing and forcing herself to nod.

“Uh- R-Right. Let’s go.”

“Maru-chan!” Ruby whispered, having a similar reaction to her older sister as she observed A-RISE from a distance. “That’s- That’s-!”

“Huh…?” Hanamaru replied, slowly blinking her eyes open and waking from her rest as Ruby tugged at her arm.

“We’re  _ walking  _ now?” Chika groaned, lazily dragging herself along- only to yelp loudly when You practically threw her across the concrete with a forceful shove.

“C’mon, Chika-chan! Where’s your enthusiasm?”

“You-chan!” Chika whined, stumbling forward as she tried to run from her friend. “It’s too early for this!”

“Why are they always like this?” Riko sighed, watching her friends run off ahead of her.

“Where do they find the energy?” Yoshiko groaned, prompting Riko to give a stern glance at her bleary eyed girlfriend.

“You’re hardly one to complain about something like that, miss fallen angel.”

“I’m only a fallen angel after ten.”

As they walked along the edge of the water the group went at a slow pace, thanks in large part to Tsubasa hobbling along on her crutches, which she still clearly hadn’t quite gotten used to. There was a ship resting on the water a little ways ahead- not an especially large one, as ships went, but still imposing just by virtue of being a ship in the first place. Dia assumed that was where they were headed.

“How is your foot feeling, Kira-san?” Kanan asked, delving into a topic Dia had really hoped they would have been able to avoid. The fact that Tsubasa was on crutches obviously meant she wasn’t doing great, though it at least she didn’t seem to be in continuous pain from her injury like she had been when she had first gotten shot, which was an improvement. Plus, the constant biting remarks seemed to have been left behind.

“It’s doing alright,” Tsubasa replied. “Nishikino-san’s doctors said I should be off these crutches and out of this cast in six to eight weeks, and that while it might take some getting used to I should eventually be able to walk on it normally again. However…” she added. “The bullet shattered several of the bones in ways they said likely won’t ever heal back to the way they were. There’s a good chance I won’t ever be able to dance again.” Tsubasa paused for a moment after she said that, then looked over at Mari, mouth curling up into a smile. “Thank you.”

“What can I say?” Mari replied, returning Tsubasa’s smile with a playful one of her own. “You pay for the best and you get the best.”

“Saying ‘best’ might be getting ahead of yourself a little bit,” Eli pointed out. “Your group was impressive out there, but I think we’ll still be holding onto that title for a while longer.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Elichi,” Nozomi teased from beside her. “I think an eight-hundred million yen casino robbery begs to differ.” That shut Eli up fairly quickly, and while Dia was going red in the face, completely mortified to be reminded about that, Mari was losing it with triumphant giggling, and even Kanan was getting a laugh out of it. She would be sleeping with one eye open until she knew Eli was chill, but she was getting a laugh out of it.

Eventually their group reached the ship they had been walking towards, coming up to the ramp that connected the deck to the dock. It was at this point they came to a stop, and all eyes turned to fall on Tsubasa, looking at her almost expectantly. Tsubasa herself, meanwhile, was just looking up at the ship, and it was a few moments before she finally pulled her eyes down and looked around at the others.

“I suppose this is where I say goodbye, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” Eli agreed. “You know where you’re going from here, right?”

“Take the boat to Korea, then board a plane for Russia, meet your contact, and travel to Finland.”

“Right. Once you arrive they’ll be able to help get you set up with a new life. Fake papers, a new identity, those sorts of things.”

“I’ve gotta admit, I’m impressed with just how many people you seem to know,” Kanan said. The only “contacts” she knew of outside their own group were the Kazuno sisters, while Eli seemed to have a man on the inside anywhere she looked.

“It comes with being at this for so long,” Eli replied, before her lips tugged up into a smirk. “Keep at it and maybe someday you’ll find yourself in the same position.”

“Not to brag,” Mari interrupted, throwing her arms around Kanan’s shoulders and falling up against her. “But we  _ do  _ have an international hotel chain at our disposal.”

“Fantastic,” Kanan grumbled back. “I’ll be sure to remember that if I ever need someone to embezzle pillow mints for me.”

“As sad as I am that I won’t be able to stick around to see where you go from here,” Tsubasa said, “I think it’s time for me to take my leave. I wouldn’t want to keep the entire ship waiting.”

“You’re sure you’ve made up your mind about this?” Erena asked, stepping forward, closer to Tsubasa.

“I’m positive,” Tsubasa replied. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’m glad I’m finally going through with it.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing I can say to change your mind at this point,” Erena laughed softly. “You always have been the stubborn one.”

“Just promise us you’ll still write when you get there,” Anju chimed in. “Get one of those international phone plans so you’ll still be able to call us!”

“I promise you, I will,” Tsubasa reassured her. “And once I’m all settled in you two can come and visit me any time.”

“Remember that you said that!” Anju insisted. “Now you don’t get to complain if I start visiting you too often.”

“I don’t think that would be possible.” Tsubasa smiled at Anju, and Anju smiled back at her, though it was the sort of smile that looked like she was right on the verge of tears as well. They stood like that for a moment, and then Anju practically threw herself forward, wrapping Tsubasa up in a tight hug and nearly knocking her off her crutches in the process. Tusbasa was startled at first, but after catching herself her smile returned, and she managed to maneuver her way around her crutches to reciprocate the hug, holding Anju tightly before looking up to Erena. “Aren’t you going to join us?”

“You know I’m not as touchy as she is,” Erena replied, glancing at Anju. Despite that she was smiling though, and even in the face of her own protest she ended up stepping forward without further prompting, wrapping her arms around the other two as well. The nine member of Aqours watched, alongside Eli and Nozomi, as this scene unfolded in front of them, as the sun steadily rose over the water, as the cool breeze continued to blow past them all. Tsubasa and her two friends stayed huddled together for a maybe a minute before they finally let their arms slide loose and stepped back from each other, and while it was clear Anju’s attempts to keep herself from crying had failed, it was also clear she wasn’t the only one. Tsubasa’s own eyes were misted over as well, and even if she was quickly lifting a sleeve to wipe them dry, it was still impossible to miss.

“Well,” she said, and her voice was just a little different now than it had always sounded in the past. “This is it. Thank you again,” she added, turning to look towards Dia and Kanan and Mari, to Eli and Nozomi, to all the other members of Aqours gathered around on the dock with her. “For everything.”

“I’m just glad we were able to help,” Dia replied.

“Bon voyage!” Mari called out.

“Yousoro!” You echoed.

“Safe travels,” Erena said.

“And let us know as soon as you get there!” Anju added on.

“I will,” Tsubasa promised. “Goodbye, everyone.” From there she turned to face the ramp leading up to the ship, managing to wrangle her suitcase into her grip over one of her crutches. She stood still for a moment, and even from behind Dia could see her shoulders rise up and fall back down, one deep breath to ready herself for the journey ahead. And then, with that out of the way, she started to make her way up the ramp. The remaining thirteen women looked on from the dock as she boarded the ship, and only a moment later the ramp was lifted up and the loud hum of an engine started to fill the air around them. Crew members moved around the deck as ropes were lifted, smoke started to billow out of one of the stacks at the top of the ship, and, eventually, a loud horn blasted down the docks. And then the ship began to move, lurching away from them and beginning to make its way out towards the water.

Tsubasa stayed at the edge of the deck, waving to her send off party as she gradually started to grow smaller and smaller in their view. Erena had an arm around Anju who, despite her energetic waving back towards Tsubasa, was nearly inconsolable by this point. Riko was leaned up against Yoshiko as they watched the sun rise over the ocean together, while You stood on one side of her and Chika stood on the other, tiring out their arms as they joined in with Anju’s vigorous waving. Ruby was huddled up with Hanamaru for warmth and protection from the cold sea breeze, hand stuffed down into her pocket and wrapped around her phone as she waited for Leah to wake up and reply to her good morning text. Eli stood with her hands in the pockets of her own suit, Nozomi wrapped around her arm as she so often was. And, at the center of it all, Dia stood with her eyes out towards the ocean, watching as the ship grew smaller and smaller against the horizon.

“This felt nice, didn’t it?” she heard Mari say. “Not our usual style, but I think I liked it. A little less Butch Cassidy a little more Robinhood, you know?”

“Right,” Kanan agreed. “It’s weird, but I feel like we really did something good for someone this time.”

“Yes,” Dia said, reaching out to either side of her, letting her fingers brush against the other women’s as she took Kanan’s hand in one of her own and Mari’s in the other. “I suppose we did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! As always, thank you so much to everyone who checked this fic out and left their support along the way! This was a bit of an experiment in pushing myself out of my comfort zone, since I've never really written anything so action-heavy before, so I had a lot of fun going out on a limb and trying something new. Overall there were parts I was happy with and parts I realize probably could have been better, but all in all I hope it still proved to be an enjoyable read!
> 
> Moving forward I'll probably be taking a bit of a break from these longer multi-chapter fics that get spread out over the course of a few months. I'm juggling a lot of other projects all at once right now, and I just don't have as much time to dedicate to fics as I used to, so trying to keep to a consistent update schedule has been kinda hectic lately (as you may have noticed with some of the long pauses while I was writing this particular work). I still plan to continue posting with some degree of regularity, but expect to see more one-off stuff for the next little while. If you want to keep up with me and my other projects, fanfic related or otherwise, you can check me out at @AlexIsOkay on Twitter! In the meantime thank you one more time for reading, and I hope to see some of you around in the future!


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